White
by LoweFantasy
Summary: Sequel to Holy but can be read on its own. A college legend says that if you walk through a part of campus at a certain time of night with the man you love, if he be unfaithful, he will be marked. But never fear. If he comes out with proof of two-timing, the girl in white will come and get rid of him for you. But what happens when the legend proves true and men start to die?
1. Prologue

White

By LoweFantasy

Prologue

I could not get comfortable with the fact I was in a wedding dress store. And not the second hand thrift store I had pointed out along the way, but a ritzy, high end, our-cheapest-dress-is-100,000 yen dress store.

Maybe it was all the money. No, it was definitely the money. And the fact that Luella had been the one to drag me here, insisting she had no problem in paying for the dress—or anything else, for that matter. I thought this somewhat unthoughtful of her, considering the fact that I had already expressed my opinion that I was not okay with handouts.

"Who said this was a handout?" she said, even as I was digging my heels into the sidewalk. "You're going to make me grandbabies!"

Even given that I was in love with the idea of having babies and always have been, Naru was lucky that I loved him and his mother so much. This was just getting weird. Would she creep into our future house to poke a needle through all the condoms?

As the assistant slipped on dress after dress, my nerves fed on themselves due to the sweat they created, for this just got me all riled up on how my cheap girl sweat was smearing on all these million yen dresses. Didn't they have, I don't know, armpit pads you could stick on to prevent this? Couldn't she smell me? I couldn't smell myself, granted, but any moment I would and then I would die of humiliation and money shock.

The assistant, a girl a few years older than me with bright cherry hair and too much make up, finished buttoning up the mermaid style dress. It had been almost nothing but buttons. "Alright, let's go check it out! You're so gorgeous I might just pee!"

The carpet was ivory. That might show.

Luella was waiting on her little chair in the show room, which was a hexagon shaped room with mirrors on every wall and a pedestal to stand on in the middle so you could get a full view of the gown.

I was mildly surprised I didn't have to mince walk in order to get to the pedestal. I didn't even have to struggle to get up on it. Mermaid dresses always gave me the impression they would do that to a person.

Luella squealed. "Oh, it's so elegant! It's almost like it's made out of pearls!"

I got my first look into one of the mirrors and did a double take. Had my butt always been that fat? Ugh, and my arms, I hated sleeveless dresses. They made my arms look like sacks of meat had been hung about the upper portion.

"You're arms are not big," said Luella crossly. "And neither is your butt. It's called curves—oh! You're just so sexy!"

Yeah, I could feel the blush coming on. This woman knew I was going to have sex with her son in the near future. That was just so weird on so many levels. Did she ever think about it? Did she ever…ugh, stopping while I'm ahead.

"Can you find me one with sleeves?" I asked. "Not big sleeves—I don't want anything confining. Something I can be comfortable in." I looked back into the mirrors at my suddenly Atlantis sized rear end. "And something that doesn't make my butt the main attraction. Maybe something old fashion. Flowy. Um, if you would—please, that is. I'm sorry, this is really weird for me." I gave the red-haired assistant my most apologetic look.

She gave one of those friendly laughs that are never made because you're actually amusing. "Don't worry about it, it's my job! Really, it's no trouble. If your mother is okay with helping you get out of the gown, I'll run in back and see what we have."

Luella jumped to her feet, looking far too happy by the chance to strip me. Lucky for me I had a sort of wedding dress shift underneath. At least these rich-dress-bastards were somewhat mindful of how many bodily juices I might smear on their priceless fabric.

In the large changing room, she set to work on the mile of buttons.

"Do you think you could tell me some of the cases your husband goes on?" I asked. "I know Madoka taught Naru about ghost hunting, but he must have gotten something from his father."

"Oh, he's the one who taught Madoka," she said. "So, indirectly, you could say he taught Naru. But, no, I don't think his cases are anything like Naru's. He's a lot more, how do I put it…subtle. Listen's around for rumors, stories, investigates under the pretense of doing something else. He's a rather shy man and isn't much for attention, though there was this one time…"

She started telling me about a case of an old manor owned by the last member of a duke's line. She finished the last button and helped me step out as she was giving me the nitty gritty details of how he debunked the theory of a death curse left by the duke it was named after. About then, the cherry haired girl returned, a mass of white fabric that was different from the others she had held. Rather than having the shiny look of satin or taffeta, it looked to be made of cotton.

"That man," she said, looking, for the first time, uncertain. "The one who deals with ghosts, does he exist?"

I looked at Luella to see what she thought, but Luella was frowning with her brow puckered in concern.

"Yes. I take it you have a problem?"

The girl looked to the floor. "Um, I know this is going to sound really stupid, and I don't believe it myself, but there's this…sort of ghost story at my college. I use to think it was really stupid, but lately my friends…and I…" She cleared her throat and suddenly gave a cheery, plastic sort of smile that made me wince. "Listen to me, sounding so dramatic! I found this little treasure near the very back in storage. It's a rather unique style, one of its only kind."

She hung up the hanger on the designated hook in the corner and unzipped the plastic. Rolls upon rolls of soft, cotton skirts came piling out. I found myself putting my hands to my mouth as the girl cleared the plastic away.

It looked like an old Victorian gown made of linen dyed in snow. It had an hourglass bodice that cut short just above the hips to let loose a bell-like skirt of several layers. It was hemmed with simple, hook-eyed lace, and the sleeves looked like they'd reach the elbows. The shoulders, however, were left open.

"It's perfect!" I squealed, though the 'moment' was somewhat ruined by the memory of the dress assistant's nervous voice. Before I could ask, however, Luella beat me to the punch, still looking kindly concerned.

"What of this ghost story from your campus? And what college do you go to? I can let my boys know and see if they're up for the case."

The girl bit her lip, once more uncertain. "I don't have any money to pay you or anything, and it isn't like the staff will either. I think the ones on top use the story as a selling point for the school."

"It won't hurt to tell them," Luella said with a smile and light wave of her hand. "If it's interesting enough, they'll go for it."

"Yeah," I added. "And if it's causing you and your friends trouble like you say, I'm willing to help. I have some friends who are exorcists, and, um, I guess you could sort of call me a medium."

Her face lit up with both hope and suspicion. "That's…very kind of you. I guess I can—if anything it will be an interesting story, right?"

"Right!" Luella and I chirped.

She gave us another somewhat plastic smile and begun.

"Well, they say it all started with some girl who found out her fiancé was cheating on her…"


	2. The Rumbling of a Case

**Because I just crunched my budget numbers and feel like crap now because of it, so bam. A chapter. Enjoy.**

 **And screw the world.**

Chapter 1

We came back to Naru's modern downtown apartment, which I had been to more in the last week than I have my entire life. It wasn't much and fit Naru to a tee in the fact that it the furnishings were black, sleek, and few. Nothing was there that wasn't used often. The most superfluous furniture in the whole house was his coffee table. He had no bookshelves, no pictures, no decorations, and his bedroom was only a bed and a black wardrobe.

I asked if his favorite color was black and he gave me the very boring answer that it was just easier to get everything to match if you went with black. To think Naru was the kind of guy who worried about color coordination.

I let Luella do most of the rundown of our shopping trip in mixed English and Japanese, as I was exhausted. Naru's father listened with his usual impassive face in the arm chair. Naru didn't even bother to make a show of listening from where he sat at the end of the couch, reading and sipping at a cup of tea. This suited me all the same. I wasn't that into wedding planning either, and I managed to find an optimal cuddle spot to sneak my head onto his lap and lounge across the rest of his—so exciting!—black couch. He fidgeted a bit, never being the one comfortable with any display of public affection, even front of his parents. Especially in front of his parents. But as he had his hands full and didn't want to cause I scene, I got my Naru pillow and life was good.

"Oh! And we found a case for you two!"

Neither of the men reacted. The most Naru did was put down his tea on the coffee table, which was a feat as my head was on his lap and he didn't want to smother me with his stomach. I didn't mind. Not a freaking bit. More warm Naru flesh. Boy, I was so bushed. Even if I was rich, I think I'd hate shopping all the same. Man, my feet!

When no one responded, she went on, all bubbles and popping excitement. "Apparently there's this story at Tokyo University about if you walk between two old buildings in the back with the one you love, if they're unfaithful they'll get the kanji for liar on their foreheads and—"

"Let me guess," drawled Naru with a snap of his book. "They die. Has anyone actually died?"

"That's the thing!" she squealed, not bothering to get on her son's case about rudely interrupting as I would have. "The girl who told us about it said that her friend's boyfried died shortly after that in an accident on his scooter, and before that an upperclassman in her dormitory also had a boyfriend who died in an accident. She had all these other stories too of all these boys who had died in the pass in seemingly random accidents!"

"So men. Not lovers."

She puffed up her bangs and pouted at him. "Why does it matter? We already said you'd help, so you want to check it out?"

This wasn't entirely correct, as we had said we'd tell the guys about it and see what they were interested, but, hey, I had my nose full of Naru scent and I totally got to feel his abs through his shirt on my cheek. Did I mention how tired I was?

"Sounds like a rehash of the white woman story," said Naru with a sigh, before asking his father a question in English. While the man could pick up some Japanese from being around his wife and sons, he still was probably in bad need of an explanation. Surely enough, as Naru spoke, comprehension dawned on him and he said something back in his low, rumbly voice. I loved his voice. He used it so little, though, but when he did it was like the whole room rumbled with it, like low key thunder.

Luella frowned at whatever her husband said. "Now that's not fair."

"What'd he say?" I asked, closing my eyes. Maybe, if I was really lucky, Naru might let me sleep here.

"He's not comfortable doing a case in the Japanese setting, as he doesn't have a good grasp on the language and doesn't know the customs here as well as Gene did," he said, glancing down at me. "Could you be a little more appropriate?"

"Oh, leave me alone. I'm tired and you're comfy."

"You're wearing a skirt."

I peeked under my eyelids and closed them again. "Yes, and it's completely flipped up and displaying all of my luscious thighs and cute pink panties to the world. Leave me be, won't you?"

During our exchange, Luella had focused her attention on her husband and was speaking in English. As she did so she put her purse by the door and took a seat on the chair's armrest. Professor Davis also had a book, which he had politely set on his lap as he spoke to his wife—or mainly listened.

"Girls don't wear as short of skirts in England. You'll embarrass my dad."

"My skirt is knee-length, you prude, and your dad hasn't even said a word or even looked over. Besides, it isn't like he's going to go eyeballing his son's fiancé."

"Just sit up."

I groaned. "You are so mean." And sat up. I pulled up my bare feet to massage them. "I hate shopping. But we got a dress and, you know, wedding stuff."

"Mmhmm." He had picked up his book again and flipped it open to a page.

"Oliver dear! Say you'll take the case for your father, won't you?" When Naru didn't answer, seemingly engrossed in his book once more, she pouted, stomped over, and snapped the book close. Naru gave an exasperated sigh that he often times gave me, and which made me smile.

"Why doesn't dad just take the case?" he asked. "It most likely has to do with P.K.-L.T. Psychics are his department. I prefer ghosts."

"What makes you think it's not a ghost?" I asked.

"Simple. It's crowded," he said. "As you know, spirits are easily influenced by those around them. Because of that, spirits that reside in places where there isn't much traffic tend to be stronger. Those in high traffic areas are weakened by all the minds that brush against them and eventually are blended in to the background or move on due to having forgotten why they're there in the first place. For example, have you ever heard of the haunted metropolitan? The haunted mall?"

"But what about those cases we had at schools. There were spirits there."

"Those spirits were brought there by some outside means, such as the suzhou curse, use of the hitogata, and the kodoku. The spirits weren't there naturally, meaning they weren't 'haunting' in the strictest sense of the word."

"So…you're not interested in this case because…?"

He sighed. "I thought I just said why."

"You should really be more patient," said Luella, as she has been prone to do whenever around when Naru talks to me. Sometimes I got the impression that she was in constant fear that I'd get mortally offended by Naru's lack of finer feelings and run off. I thought she'd realize that I had three years to do that. Besides, I knew just as well as she did that he was just a big self-conscious softy underneath his icy, confident front—which I was finding more hilarious every day.

"And you should take the case," she said, beaming. "I've never seen you at work."

"It's just work, Mom. It's not much different from what Dad does."

"Oh, but I want to see you and Mai work together! Come on, humor me, I've been trying to imagine what you're up to for the past three years! Don't you have any idea how much I missed you?"

"I know perfectly well, as you keep reminding me." He gave another exasperated sigh. "Fine. On one condition."

She perked up. "You'll do it? And you'll let me watch?"

Professor Davis looked up from his book, his stormy eyebrows morphed into one in consternation. Apparently anything that made his wife excited was something to be concerned over. That, or he was misinterpreting her sudden pitched voice for dismay.

"If you or dad can get me license to research on campus grounds, I'll do it. That's my condition."

She squealed, fluttered her hands at shoulder height, and went back to Professor Davis like a happy puppy. I couldn't help but smile. She had the energy of someone even younger than me. Then I frowned. If his mother came, that mean Naru would be uptight the entire case. He wouldn't let me so much as hold his hand or kiss him or…aw man.

"Perhaps having someone to watch us is a good thing."

I scowled at him. "Why can't you read my mind when it's actually useful? And I don't see what's so good about it."

"You know what I'm talking about."

"Fine, but then I want us married by the end of the summer."

He stopped mid-reach for his tea to give me a displeased glare from beneath his eyebrows. I didn't miss the sudden rise in color in his ears, however. "Really, Mai, you can't go changing dates like that. My mother's already going to be cramped for time to organize everything by fall. Now shh, we shouldn't be talking about things like this in public."

"You brought it up." And he did. Not to mention his living room with his parents wasn't exactly public. "Besides, all I want to do is cuddle, not—"

"Mai, stop. Please."

His ears were pink now and he looked cooler and more composed than ever as he perfectly sipped his tea. I half expected him to stick out his pinky.

Luella and Professor Davis were still speaking in rapid English. Professor Davis had sighed and was reaching under his leg for his phone.

I grinned, suddenly mischievous. I wanted a little fun after such an arduous day.

"Sex."

Of course Luella and her husband didn't stop what they were doing and started screaming. They carried on in their conversation like sane, mature human beings. The way Naru flushed and spilled a bit of tea over his knee was as though they had anyways.

"Can you please behave like an adult?"

"Why? This is funny. Besides, you should hear your mom talk." I grinned wider, wondering if I should push my luck. "You know she talked to me about birth control today, right? Was all set to persuading me to not even bother and just have babies right away."

By the flinch to his eyes—the knee-jerk reaction he had whenever he felt the urge to look away in embarrassment, but then habitually fought it—told me she had talked to him about it too.

"Mai—" he said, half warning, half pleading.

"She actually gave me my homework to talk to you about it." Oh, how he squirmed. "I don't know why you're so uncomfortable about it. You're the one who so confidently bought me lingerie the other week."

Now his parents stopped talking to look over at us curiously. Naru didn't wait. Putting aside his book and tea, he stood and walked out of the room and to the bathroom, where he closed it with a perfectly controlled snap. Not too loud. Not too soft. Because you know we'd be paying perfect attention to that so we could gauge just how much we had riled him, because we're that obsessive.

I laughed. Oh God, he was cute.

"What did you say to him?" asked Luella curiously.

"Oh, nothing." I hadn't even been talking particularly loud, so I doubted she had heard our conversation. Her own voice had been louder than my own, but still he—oh gosh. So cute.

The rumble through my toes told me that Professor Davis had begun to talk. He had found the number to call and was settling himself to stand from his armchair, which the rectangle man always took his sweet time doing, even though he was nowhere overweight.

"I think I'll head home for the night," I said, wiping at a tear in my eye. So funny. "I don't want to distract from time with your son."

"Nonsense! You're going to be ours soon too!"

"Nah, I think I've pushed Naru's buttons enough." Besides, I wanted an excuse for him to come to my house so I could get my cuddles in, or at least some alone time with him so he'd at least let me freaking hold his hand…I suddenly didn't feel so bad about humiliating him anymore.

Luella looked to the bathroom door, but didn't seem to make much of it. "Oh, he's fine. Must you really go?"

If I'm to get any time with Naru to myself, yes. "Yeah. Sorry about that. You guys are still here for the next three days, right?"

"Right." But she didn't look too happy about it. She had already asked if she could take me home with her, but two weeks notice wasn't long enough to get a passport or a plane ticket to England, even if you did have money—and I was well and burned out on having money spent on me.

With that, I waved good-bye, and slipped my sandals back onto my sore feet.

 **Side note: I still have 50 free copies of my book on Inkitt that I need to get rid of for reviews, if any of you are interested. It wouldn't hurt to check it out, right? Just go to Inkitt and look up 'Erase Me' in that iconic search bar in the upper right hand corner. There are two of them, but it's pretty obvious the one written by 'Lowefantasy' is mine. But, since, you know, the internet has a way of bleaching out our brains sometimes, I thought I'd tell you anyways.**


	3. Sacred

Chapter 2

It took about forty-five minutes to get from Naru's apartment to mine. He had gotten something about ten minutes away from the SPR's office, but sense I'm poor and use to be a high school student, even with Naru's wonderful paychecks, my apartment was thirty minutes away from SPR in the other direction. Therefore, do the math, and by the time I was home I had begun to doubt my genius plan to lure Naru away from his parents. All that waited for me until I fell asleep was an empty, quiet apartment. At least I had had dinner with Luella so it wouldn't be so much time.

Sighing to myself, I got my mail out of the apartment complex's mail box and went through the envelopes as I climbed the stairs. An ocher summer's evening spread my shadow out long and thin out of the corner of my eye.

I paused as I came to, not an envelope, but a post card, displaying a beautiful coral reef. I flipped it over to find, to my delight, a short note from John.

 **Thought I'd let you know I got home safe. Also I wanted an excuse to write in Japanese. I always thought the characters so exotic compared to old English. Hoping you are safe and happy.**

 **Sincerely,**

 **John**

Underneath this was a small scribbled address, all in English, for somewhere in Australia. Something warm blossomed in my chest, along with a curious ache I couldn't quite understand. Shrugging it off, I slipped out my keys from my small backpack (I still hadn't bothered to get myself a purse when my school backpack still worked perfectly well), and unlocked my apartment.

Inside smelled of home and was warm from the lack of A/C. The setting sun lit up the room with a single square of orange from the kitchen window. I put my mail on the counter, slipped off my sandals, then stood their stupidly for something to do.

"Guess I should do some cleaning," I said aloud to myself. "And…I guess I could pop some popcorn and watch some _Columbo_. Yeah…yeah that actually sounds pretty good. A mystery marathon. Maybe I could even bother to paint my nails. That'd be something."

So I set about to cleaning and scrubbing the place. Since it was just a little studio apartment, with the only other room being a small bathroom, it took a grand total of one hour to get everything squeaky clean and my laundry done up in a bag in the corner to take down to the washing room in the morning. By then the sun had set, though its orange glow hadn't. I showered, taking my sweet time and singing nonsense tunes. Scrubbed my feet, daydreamed about Naru and weddings, wondered about the case and played with particularly horrifying, but exciting possibilities.

By the time I had gotten out, my tiny A/C unit had had its time to cool down the place and the sun's glow had set along with it. Twilight was setting and the digital clock on my TV-less Roku box said 9:24pm.

I found my laptop and while I waited for it to turn on I checked my phone for messages.

 **Naru: Why must you tease me?**

If I didn't know him better, I'd say he was sounding somewhat whimsical and flirtatious saying that. But, since I knew him better, I knew he was glaring up a storm at his phone as he typed this in frustration.

As before, I started off feeling bad, and then remembered he wouldn't even hold my hand in front of his parents when they obviously didn't give a damn.

And since it's always best to be honest with Naru, since he can be a bit thick at times:

 **Me: Because you're ridiculous. Your parents obviously don't care if you show that you love me. Your mom even likes it when I force you to.**

Naru, not the most avid of texters, took his usual forever to respond. By the time he did, I had Netflix rolled up on my computer and an episode of _Columbo_ loading.

 **Naru: I don't see what this has to do with talking about inappropriate subjects in the company of others as well as lounging in a miniskirt in someone else's house.**

Okay, that irritated me. I had to take a second to collect myself in order to write up a response. I did these sort of things so much better when I had the said person there to yell at.

 _Just remember_ , I had to tell myself. _You have to be stupid with him. He doesn't understand normal people's emotions._

 **Me: Okay, one: your parents didn't even hear me. If you recall I was speaking in a lower voice than her. Two: it's my fiancé's house, not a stranger's. Also, for someone who acts like they're all that and don't care what other people think, you care way too much what other people think.**

It took a long time to type this all down as Naru didn't do well with txt speech. As far as I knew, I was the only one he texted on an extended basis.

The episode started and I became captured up in the story. The murder had already been committed before I remembered my plans for popcorn. When my phone vibrated, my fingers had been doused in butter and I almost didn't catch the message as I was caught up in how Detective Columbo would throw off the murderer and find the vase used to smash over the poor victim's head. Oh, I loved how he talked about his wife. Detective Columbo was the best. If only Naru could be so sweet. Knowing him, once he was married he'd pretend I didn't exist to other people in the name of 'privacy.' What a wet rag.

 **Naru: Can't you respect my comfort levels? If you want something from me, just say it. You don't have to humiliate me for it.**

Sizzle. Talk about guilt trip…and crap, it worked.

A little miffed at my inability to handle it when it was dished out on me, I finished the episode before picking up my phone again to find, to my surprise, another text.

 **Naru: I read over the texts and I'm assuming you will wonder why I am self-conscious about showing affection towards you in front of my parents. I believe it is because I am afraid they will tease me for it. I loathe teasing, as you are so fond of reminding me, and my mother can be rather…vocal.**

The way he said that made me imagine her jumping up and down beside's him screaming his love to me for the world. Instead, I scratched that, and corrected it with how she had behaved the first few hours off of the plane by hugging and kissing and glomping Naru and every opportune moment she could.

…I guess I could get that.

I thought for a bit, glanced at the clock (10:43pm), and replied.

 **Me: I'm sorry. I got carried away in my playing and I had fallen in love with the idea of taking a nap on your lap when you pushed me off. You smell nice, and I love being around you. I want to be around you all the time, it kind of makes me feel like a desperate puppy. How's that for dignity? Well, I hope you sleep well.**

Figuring that would be the end of our conversation (as stated above, Naru isn't a big texter), I turned back to the next episode with full intent, bowl held up on my knees and practically scooping popcorn into my mouth. The fingernail polish I had gotten out from my medicine cabinet went forgotten and at the end of the episode, I put it away as I went to brush my teeth.

I clicked around the next episodes before yawning and deciding I was too tired to really enjoy more. I closed my laptop, crawled into my futon, and checked my phone one last time for any last minute notes.

 **Naru: I want you. I can't comprehend how any man could not want you as much as I do, especially on late nights such as these when I remember your teasing, your smiles, your intuition, your warmth against me. Please don't tempt me more than you already do, as I don't have much left to hold onto. Because I love you and want to make what happens between us what it is meant to be and not what the world has made it into; I want it to be making love and not a recreational sport.**

…Okay, I don't think I've ever blushed so much completely alone in my life. If his intention was to stun me speechless and leave me laying awake like a brilliant red glow stick in the night, he did it.

I bit my lip. How did one respond to that? Sometimes Naru threw me off guard with the depths of his passions. For the longest time he had fulfilled all my expectations as a cold, heartless narcissist. Now that I was so close to the cold flame within him, it startled me to realize it could burn. Sometimes it left me in awe that someone could feel so deeply in a world where so many sought to numb up their souls. Sometimes it unnerved me, as I was afraid of treading wrong or being mistaken in his depth.

Even as I was thinking, another text from him came in.

 **Naru:** **Because of that I don't want my feelings for you or you yourself to be held up for others to tease or mock or make light of. I'm afraid they might demean you to the level of perverted jokes or pop songs about mediocre puppy love or make you any less delightful to behold than my Mai. I'm afraid they'll try to poke their noses between us to gossip and wonder about something that isn't their business in the first place. You are…sacred to me. Because of that I'm afraid I might unnerve you at times with how aloof I am. I worry you might think I don't care for you or don't want others to know I do, which is not the case. Perhaps you are right and I pay too much attention to what others think. For that, I apologize. I will do my best to do better at that.**

Needlessly to say, I had found Naru to be much more eloquent and better spoken in text than he was in person.

It took me a while before finally penning down the safest answer I could think of.

 **Me: I'm sorry if I haven't respected you in that regard. I'm sorry if I have been rude. I really have been an idiot this time.**

I pushed my phone aside, a little stunned, a little touched, but mostly aching for him. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to press him close to me till my soul touched that certain something burning inside him that made him Naru. Then I could hold it close to me until he comprehended to the upmost degree that I would give my life for him…that he was fast becoming my life, if he wasn't already.

And then he might know just how desperately I wanted him to be happy. I would give anything to make him happy.

My phone buzzed. Past midnight now.

 **Naru: We're both idiots.**


	4. Conflicting Interests

Chapter 3

Cherry head girl wasn't there to greet us when we pulled up in the SPR van outside yet another college dormitory. Instead, a very familiar bespeckled face was.

I launched out of the van. "YASU!"

"Mai!" He cried with equal exuberance, catching my embrace and spinning me around. "Hello hello!"

"I can't believe we get to work with you, it's been forever!"

"Yeah! I know! We've got some serious catching up to do!"

And, of course, Naru just hates it when people are having a party on any other day besides their birthdays—if that. "Do your family reunion later. You're on my clock and have a job to do."

Yasu made something of a jokitive angry cat noise and said, "Jeeze, I thought you would have had him tamed by now."

"Taming has nothing to do with it," I said, flashing Naru a smile I hope he'd find cute enough to cut me some slack. It must have been, for he gave me the job of checking in with head of the university's housing management for our quarters rather than lifting the heavy stuff out of the van.

She was waiting for us in the common room of dormitory 2-B just as she had promised. Mrs. Kodachi was a plain middle-aged woman of all sinew and bone. Despite her somewhat fragile appearance, her grip on my hand was firm when we shook, and she had no problem helping Yasu with his especially heavy load (really, Naru? Really?). Only a few students were about on the black sofas, though two rushed to open the doors for us.

"I managed to reserve you one of our specialty rooms usually kept aside for dorm meetings or, dare I say, parties. It was the only thing I could find big enough," she said as she turned herself and Yasu down the hall, her fingers taunt on their shared tote. "Unfortunately I haven't been able to get you any beds."

"That's fine," I said. "We're use to bringing our own sleeping gear along with everything else. It's so nice of you to set up this room for us!"

"All the conditions of our arrangement should be in the contract," she continued, all business, completely untouched by my attempts to be friendly. "But I'd like to emphasize the importance of obtaining a written agreement from any student or staff member before any questioning, or should you want to include them in any kind of video or report."

"The President made sure we knew that. Don't worry, we've worked on a college campus before. You should hardly notice us here."

"Perfect." She seemed to have found the door she was looking for. After calling for one of the boys that had been circling us like carrion to take her position with Yasu, she shook her fingers and took a key from her pocket. The door squeaked a bit when she opened it.

"Quiet time is at ten, no alcohol, no smoking, no loud music—oh! Almost forgot." From her pocket she pulled out another key and handed it to me, since I was the only one unloaded. "There will be a fee should you lose it. And I advise you keep your room locked at all times. We won't be held responsible for any items that are stolen."

"Do items often go missing around here?"

She raised an eyebrow at Naru's voice, which came around a computer tower. She gave him a dry smile.

"It's a college. No matter how high we keep our admission standards, there will always be those who treat college as the place to experiment on everything your parents told you not to. Better safe than sorry. Is there anything else I can do for you before I head off on my inspections?"

I looked to Naru, but since he just walked right on into our new base, I told her we were good and she said to let her know if there was anything we needed before heading off.

The second guy who had jumped up from the couch to help us stood their awkwardly, leaning around me to get a good look on what was inside before turning his attention back to me. He was a decent enough looking guy with narrow eyes and curly dark hair. He wore gym shorts and a shirt with the logo of some rock band I'd never heard of.

"Um, do you need any help carrying stuff in?"

"Don't say that so casually," I said with my usual friendly smile. "Naru's always looking for more slaves."

He seemed to give me a second look after I said that, as though debating whether or not I was serious or if he should laugh at that. I started to wonder why exactly he went to this university.

"Better not talk to the commonwealth, Mai-chan," said Yasu as he came out from the doorway. "Don't want big boss to get jealous." He gave a nod to the kid. "Heya, Swii! You up for some heavy lifting?"

"Don't go volunteering people to handle my equipment," came a cool voice from behind us. "Head back with Mai and get some more."

"Yes, boss," we said in time with each other, before exchanging looks and laughing.

Poor Swii just looked at us with that same confused look on his face. Despite being spurned by Naru, however, he shyly trotted after us as we left the building and made our way back to the parking lot.

"Are—are these guys for real, Yasu?" he asked.

"Only real ones I know. They're the ones that investigated my high school."

His eyes widened. "No way. You mean with the dog phantoms and the bad smell and—"

"Yep. One and the same. Mai here is actually clairvoyant, though she's shown a fair bit of other talents too. Probably just gotten better since we last met."

"No way," the kid's awestruck eyes turned to me and I instantly felt myself blush and threw up my hands.

"I-It's no big deal! Naru—I mean, my boss is the one you should be impressed with. He's a prodigy."

"Don't worry, I heard." But even once we got to the van and I got to work handing Yasu—along with Lin who had trailed after us not too long after we left, Swii didn't leave, and it was more than comfortably obvious that he was staring at me.

"Do you really see visions?" he asked.

"Yasu," I groaned, realizing at the last second that the tote I had been taking down was heavier than I thought. Yasu jumped to put down the monitors he had, but it was Swii who jumped up and saved me from the inevitable toe mashing as I was about to get. He smelled odd. It wasn't like any cologne I had ever found, and while not unpleasant it wasn't exactly nice. It mixed with a light scent of body odor, as though he simply had yet to take his shower for the day.

"Nice save, Swii!" crowed Yasu, as he renewed his grip on the monitors. "I'll just go on ahead and open the door for you." And he jogged off after the tall, quiet Lin.

"Thanks," I said, smiling across the tote.

"No problem," he flashed me a mirroring smile, which upped his handsome factor just a tad, but not enough to dazzle me. I, after all, had been working with Naru for the past three years. "What's a little lady like you doing hauling the heavy stuff anyways?"

"It's my job."

"I'll step down first. I can probably take this, actually."

"No can do, Naru will harp on me till my ears bleed."

"That much of a nanny goat, eh? Then I'll just help. Though you didn't answer my question."

It took me a bit of backtracking before I remembered what it was he had asked. "Oh, yeah. My dreams sometimes, uh, show me stuff."

"Like what kind of stuff?"

He stepped down first, as we had planned, and I kicked the back doors closed just to discourage anyone who thought about swiping up something while we weren't looking.

"Um, it's kind of hard to explain. It might be an experience in a spirit's past, or it might be a view of the place we are investigating on the spiritual plane. Though I've also had visions of the present too." I stopped, as his jaw had dropped and his eyes widened. I wasn't really use to this kind of attention. Usually Masako was there to attract the majority of it, being a world popular medium and all. I never once took the initiative to share my talents with a client before. Why should I?

"That's…wild."

"It's no big deal."

He made a noise of disbelief. "You've got to come to my party tonight. Maybe do a reading or something."

"Reading?" I squeaked. "No no, I only get visions while I'm asleep and…sometimes I see spirits, but that's not on demand or anything."

"You see spirits?" It was like he hadn't heard a single word. "That's it, you have to come. We're going to be holding a séance with candles and everything." His voice dropped and he gave me a mischievous grin I did not find comforting in the least. "Maybe we'll hear from the girl in white."

I tried to push down my discomfort as I heard that. This could be a chance to get some useful information on our case. "What do you know about the girl in white?"

He gave me fair warning before the sidewalk rose up into the steps to the dormitory, and only then did I allow him to take the brunt of the tote, but I picked my end back up at the top.

"Well I ain't done it myself, but my pal went back behind the library where they say she killed herself and got this big glowing 'lie' on his forehead. She sure dumped him quick after that, but the legend says if you get that kanji on you when you walk back there with your girl, she'll come kill you in three days. So, since three days are about up," he flashed that smile at me again. "Some guys in the dorm thought it might be fun to pull together a séance, maybe ask her not to kill him. Just for laughs. Who am I kidding, it's all for laughs. You should see him, he totally thinks some ghost is going to come kill him."

My opinion of Swii dropped. Anyone who found that much pleasure in their friends suffering couldn't have that deep of a personality.

"Why do they even go back there?" I asked.

He snorted. "Why not? It's great bragging rights to say you braved the white girl's turf. Though, if you ask me, most who go back there are just dragged there by their girls who think their two-timing them."

"Has anyone ever died yet?"

We were coming to the doors now, which Yasu held open. It was him who answered my question.

"Because of the white girl, it's hard to say. College students die in accidents every so often, and no one bothers to ask if the kid did a stupid test of bravery or fidelity behind the library before."

The front doors hissed close behind us. More students had filled into the common room to catch a glimpse of their ghost hunting visitors. All were boys. But, then, that made sense. Universities didn't have co-ed dorms, did they?

"But they're saying some kid who OD last week actually saw her before he died," said Swii in a low voice, probably hoping to spook me.

"OD?"

"Over-dosed," said Yasu grimly. "His girlfriend dumped him before hand as well, saying she saw the kanji."

"In bright, blood red," added Swii, sweeping a hand over his forehead in his 'ghost voice.' Then his grin was back on. "So, what do you say? My room at ten? Come on, you'll only have to go up one floor, I'm right above you."

"Um," I glanced at Yasu with his monitors, but he wasn't really looking at us as he had taken the lead. I had to jerk my head when Swii almost passed the hall Yasu went down to get to base, and he corrected himself, still smiling at me, waiting. "I'll have to ask my boss."

"Aw, come on, sweet, you're an adult, aren't you? Can't you make your own choices? Look, I promise it will only be a few minutes. In and out."

A little alarm went off inside me. The growing discomfort had climaxed, ringing off every one of my warning instincts. There was something about this guy that I just didn't trust. Maybe it was his weird smell. Or perhaps it was the fact he kept smiling at me like that, as though thinking I would be charmed into following him to his room with a bunch of boys I didn't know.

I opened my mouth to refuse him along with a well placed excuse (Naru would want me to watch the monitors or something like that), when Naru suddenly stepped out of the room we were just about to enter. Swii bumped into him with a startled curse.

"She'll go," Naru said. "On one condition. Would you allow her to take a camera?"

"Sure, why the hell not—"

"And I thought I said I didn't want strangers handling my equipment."

Swii shrunk away from the tote like it was on fire. It started to fall out from my hands—but was caught by Naru, who gave me his usual leveled 'you're a moron' look over the top.

"Great," he said. "I'll send her up at about…ten did you say?"

Swii scratched the back of his head. "Man, you must have some killer ears—"

"Which you should keep in mind should you try to do anything funny," and as Naru moved his gaze to the now somewhat flustered college boy, it hardened to something like ice.

"Dude, really! That's a bit rude going around—"

"Ten?"

"Uh…yeah, ten."

"Alright. You can go away now."

Swii more or less scampered, shooting angry glances over his shoulder.

I sighed, readjusting my grip on the tote as Naru then walked us into base. "Could you have handled that with just a little more tact?"

"Men between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five have to be reminded of their place or they'll try to rut with any attractive girl they find."

Heat poured into me faster than boiling water. " _I am not a dog!_ "

"I didn't say you were. I said he was."

But I was too offended to sew together two words let alone a sentence. Jaw clenched, I abruptly dropped my end of the tote, hoping it broke all of his toes. Naru cried out as the impact sprayed cords out from the popped lid.

"Mai!"

But I was already on my way out of the room, ignoring the stares of Lin and Yasu.

Because it was one thing to volunteer me for something as though I were an object that didn't have an opinion, but then to talk about me and a guy in the same sentence as the word 'rut,' as though he had just walked in right as the guy was about to start humping?

Ugh. I needed chocolate.

 **Just a quick side note, there's only a week left to get your free copy of either one of my books ("Erase Me" or my debut novel, "Out of Duat"). So go to Inkitt and check them out! Just look them up. My pen name there is the same as it is here. LoweFantasy. I can't put any links here because will erase them. It's their anti-spam machine.**

 **Anyhoo, thanks for all the wonderful reviews! I hope you enjoy this story. Don't worry, it's going to pick up quick.**


	5. Faceless Fear

Chapter 4

I had a pretty fun time exploring campus as I ignored my cell phone for an hour or so. It surprised me how long I managed to stay angry, and I figured my time of month was probably coming around soon. That didn't make me feel guilty in the least, though, especially since I found a little teriyaki restaurant with amazingly cheap rice bowl specials. College life definitely had its appeals. The campus was like its own little town!

Alas, I wasn't completely heartless in all my hormonal glory.

I finally answered the phone.

Naru's voice was a low, heavy growl. Oh yeah, he was mad.

"Where are you?"

"Around." I made sure to slurp my chocolate ice cream extra loud into the mouth piece. "You know this place has the most adorable treat joint?"

"Get your ass back here—"

"Oo, he's using profanity with me. What would mommy say?"

"Mai, I don't have the patience for your attitude, get back here now before I fire you for good this time! And stop slurping into the mouthpiece, you child!"

"I'll slurp all I want. You're the one who volunteered me to that _dog's_ bedroom when I didn't want to, but would you know that? No." And before he could respond to that, I hammered in, "And so much for scaring him away from _rutting_ with me in the hallway. He'll just do it now in the comfort of his own bedroom!"

"Idiot, do you think I'd let you go alone?"

"Oh, I forgot about the camera. I feel so safe."

"As you should! We'll be watching every second and—do you really think I'd do that to you? Look, I'm sorry I said that before asking you first, but could you just please tell me where you are?"

"In front of the library," I said, with another lick of ice cream, not bothering to be loud this time. "I figured since we are here for work I might as well get a feel for the place. What, did you think I was just running about doing nothing?"

The quiet at the other end told me that, yes, he had. I had to roll my eyes at that. It was a bit hard to be mad at him now that I'd had my chance to beat him back to his place. Also, a triumphant little smirk had worked itself onto my mouth when I heard that worried tone when he asked me where I was. Possessive little freak. He totally loved me.

"Oh, side note," I said. "Next time you decide to put a 'male between sixteen and whatever' in his place, consider that I don't open my legs for any guy who wants it so you mightn't bother."

Naru made a spluttering noise. "I would—Mai!"

"What?"

"Why would you even, you know I wouldn't—ugh, forget it. Stay where you are, I'll come to you."

I gave him a 'roger, boss' and hung up. After all, the heat was getting to my ice cream, and I couldn't let precious chocolate goodness go to waste, could I? All hands on deck.

By the time he reached me, sunset was upon campus and I was licking the remains of my ice cream from my fingers. I once more flashed him my cutest smile in hopes it would smooth over anything else between us, but he didn't smile back. His expression was as hard as ever. He stood over me with his arms folded, looking every bit as imperious as he could looming like that.

"Well?"

I blinked. "Well what?"

"Didn't you come here to get impressions?"

Oh yeah. That. "I already walked around. Feels like a normal library. But, then, it would wouldn't it?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

I had to smirk at this. I rarely got the upper hand on him on anything paranormal. I lifted a finger. "It's not night. They say you have to walk behind the library with the man you love at night. So, shall we see if you're a cheat?"

He scowled. "Will you ever grow up?"

"Says the man who blushes and falls apart whenever I say the word 'sex.'"

Sure enough, there was the blush. To his credit, he didn't falter even a little in his usual arrogant stance.

"Have you had dinner already?"

I told him I had, and he proceeded to call up Lin and tell him to bring over a night vision and infrared camera to the back of the library. Wireless cameras really were the best thing ever. I asked Naru if he remembered when we had to run chords all over the place, and he just ignored me. But of course he would remember. Omniscient Naru remembered everything.

After he hung up, he sighed, and dropped down beside me on the steps. We sat there in quiet and stared up at the library. Trees hung here and there, casting long shadows to the east.

The library itself was an…odd building. It could have been the brain child of western idealism of Roman stonework, a prison, and modern art. While maintaining the basic square shape most building had, the front bulged out in occasional hexagonal turrets that melded into the same wall. The entrance was actually beneath these and farther back, as pillars connected to each other via arches held it up. I had been admiring the different colored stones used to build it as I ate my ice cream.

"I'm sorry I overreacted," said Naru quietly. "That I didn't ask you first, I just…I just didn't want the kind of guy who would wear that kind of shirt in public around you."

I blinked at him. "What's wrong with rock bands?"

Now it was Naru's turn to stare at me. "You don't know what that logo is for?"

"A…rock band?"

The corner of his mouth twitched, but apparently he was still in too foul of a mood to find humor in anything yet.

"That's a logo for pornography company."

We looked at each other until that settled in my brain. Sadly, instead of justifying him, that just riled me up all over again.

" _And you agreed for me to go into his room?!"_

"For a séance with other people," he said quickly. "Look, a séance doesn't technically work unless you have a medium in which the spirit to talk to—"

"So you're using me?"

"I was going to go with you." And in a blink he went from self-defending, cold, intelligent Naru to the floundering young man that only I ever got to see—or could see, as to everyone one else he probably looked as blank and haughty as usual. "You could have always said no. I figured if you didn't want to, nothing would budge you."

I hmphed, and returned to glaring at the weirdo library looming ahead of us. My yelling had attracted the attention of a few students passing by, and of course it was only my yelling. Naru hardly ever yelled while in a fight or argument. Yelling, for him, was left to emergencies and extreme fear.

"Look, Mai, I was just thinking about the case," he said. "We're at work…it was nothing personal."

"You're the one who made it personal by being rude to him. That's what courtesy is for, Naru-kins. It keeps business and personal separate."

His eyes kind of widened at that. "I…I never thought of it that way." He glanced over at me, half of his face lit up by the fire of the setting sun between the distant buildings. "You're remarkably intelligent. But I always knew that."

I managed to push, "You got a funny way of showing it," past the sudden breathlessness the image had given me. God, didn't he know how he looked with his dark hair aflame with sunset and his ocean blue eyes looking at me like that? And he thought he was the one struggling to contain his sexual desires, yeesh! He had no idea.

He shrugged a shoulder towards the library. "Ever been in there?"

"Nut'uh. Why?"

"It's beautiful," he said simply.

I looked back to it, just as curious as he had probably meant me to be. "Sure looks kind of funny to me."

"Don't judge a book by its cover."

"Unless it's a steamy erotic novel," I said, smirking at him, but he just gave me a droll stare. "What? I don't read those. But they're always pretty obvious on the cover on what's going on between the pages."

He just shook his head and stood up. He texted something, then slipped his phone back into his pocket and held out his hand to me.

"Come on. Let's check it out. We got some time until dark."

I took his hand, peacefully content that we had found ourselves back to happy ground again.

Then I stood, and fear, cold, hard, burst through my gut. Something was going to happen. Something horrible was about to happen.

I didn't realize my knees had weakened until Naru's hands caught my arms. "Mai?"

"I…I'm okay. I just…I just feel so scared all a sudden."

"Can you pin point why? Does anything come to mind?"

I shook my head. Then, as it faded under my attention, I pressed myself to his chest and nuzzled my face into his shirt. His tea and musk scent fed every part of my shaken soul. There couldn't be a better smell in the world than my Naru.

 **Well this is rare. I'm having a hard time with my muse, otherwise I would have posted up, like, five more chapters along with this. anyone got any suggestions? I mean, I have the next chapter written down, but beyond that...**


	6. First Victim

**This update is the requested birthday present for my much loyal reader, Sailor Scout (she has a bunch of extra S's that make me feel like a snake saying, and since I have a cold, I will imperiously ignore said extra S's...*sniff*). Happy Birthday. Enjoy some blood. I am working on the next chapter. *sniff* My nose...my head...my braaaaain.**

Chapter 5

Naru and I took a short tour through the library until it closed around nine. By then the sun had set, and while deep night had yet to breach upon the long summer evenings, Naru and I figured it was dark enough to take the walk through the back.

"My mom will be here in the morning," said Naru. "She'll only be with us for a day. Their flight leaves early the next day, so she won't get her complete wish."

"So if we want to do any making out we'll have to get it done now, is that what you mean?"

He flashed me the dry look I was expecting. But it didn't last long as he was soon distracted by turning about the bend of the library. Grass, trees, and a fair amount of bushes filled the space behind it, but otherwise didn't look all that foreboding.

"How exactly did she die?" I asked.

"The 'white girl' in question was a Yuki Mitagawa. She had been suffering from substance abuse and depression. Hardly unexpected."

"Okay, but how did she, you know, kill herself?"

He didn't speak until we were about to pass a particularly large oak. Its branches had been trimmed back in years so give the library wall some space, but a few branches had still found themselves pressed up against the stone and windows. One thick branch had been cut when it had been particularly large, or it had grown afterwards. The bark had curled over the wound, giving it a diseased, blistered look.

"Hung herself," said Naru. "On this tree."

We listened to the applause of the leaves, breath held. No one was around. It was just us.

"So…" I turned my head to Naru, wondering whether or not to be covert about staring at his forehead. "Do you know anything else about her?"

"Aren't you the one who is supposed to be picking up something?"

I wrinkled my nose at him and closed my eyes. But after a full minute of silence, all I picked up was a faint brush with the fear I felt before, but so lightly it was hardly there.

Naru's hand touched my waist, hesitant. Then it slid about it, holding me lightly at first, and then with a comfort as though it had been molded just for my shape. I smiled without opening my eyes.

"Are you getting possessed, Mr. Davis?"

"Don't call me that. Makes me feel like my father, and that's something no one wants to feel."

"Tut tut. Show respect for your parents."

I could feel his heat, now. I opened my eyes to meet his only inches from my own, deep, brilliant, and warm. I glanced up.

"Well, no kanji is on your head."

"Nor yours," he said, puffing my favorite smell across my face.

And I would have none of that. I kissed him, parting his lips with my own so I could breathe him in. He shivered, catching a breath between us. I licked the roof of his mouth and he gave it up to me, along with the rest of him which he pressed up against me. I loved it when he let down his poshness to wear a T-shirt once in a while, because then I could run my hands up his biceps, under his sleeves, and to his collarbone. I loved his shoulders. Their shape, so unlike mine, never failed to make me hot and heavy in places I shouldn't think about.

And that's why I was the one to pull away.

"Come on. Can't be late to porn-boy's séance."

I stepped out of his grasp, but he followed me, his hands catching on to my hips.

"Forget it," he said. "We can ask Yui to call the spirit. We know her name. If she's around, she'll come."

I smiled. "You made that up."

In answer he leaned down to brush his lips against mine. They trembled.

"Sacred," he breathed. "Really, forget about it. I was being an overprotective idiot. Let's forget it. Have tea."

"Have tea?" I laughed and kissed his nose. "Default activity, right? You want to stay right where you are."

"Not here."

By now his voice had dropped low into his chest, just as heavy as the heat in my stomach.

But he sighed, kissed my forehead, and let of me.

"I love you, Mai. I always will."

"That's not nearly as long as how long I'll love you!"

That bit of cheese helped break the heat that had fallen over us and made him wrinkle his nose. "Really, Mai? Really? I am not getting into that."

"I didn't think so." I grabbed his hand and turned us about. "Come on, lover boy. Back to work. Can't have nothing to show your mom when she comes, she might think we were up to something."

Back at base Lin was conspicuously missing, and Yasu was smirking up a storm.

"You two getting a little action by the library?"

I blushed. Naru just walked forward, as thought Yasu had said nothing. That didn't deter him, however. He was still all smirks, which he turned on me.

"So, Mai, you heading with me to Swii's room?"

"If you'd been a peeping Tom you would've known the answer to that question," I said, wondering if I'd get into too much trouble in taking off my shoe and throwing it at him.

"You're right. I didn't see anything. I just wanted to witness Naru-sama squirm. Lin's still working on getting the camera on. Somebody forgot to charge the batteries!" he sang.

Naru made a satisfied grunt of sorts, busy with flicking on monitors and glancing through some information on the laptop at the same time.

"Yasu, you remember your job?"

"Yep. Grill Swii and poor condemned Joe, give you the juice, don't get possessed."

"Too bad I can't pay you to get a better sense of humor as well," said Naru.

"Hey! My humor is perfect!"

"It's three minutes after ten."

"Right, big boss."

And Yasu marched out of base. I smiled fondly at his back before sashaying to Naru's side. I watched as he scrolled through the footage that we did get so far—mainly of the areas around the library, which consisted of only three cameras—as well as through some emails sent to us by witnesses. I was just thinking about setting up the cots for Lin and Naru when Yasu reappeared in the doorway. Something about the look on his face turned every organ in my body to painful ice.

"We got a problem," he said, voice high.

"What?" snapped Naru.

"Joe's dead."


	7. A Meeting of Detectives

**Because I'm batman.**

Chapter 6

Yasu had walked into the other boys hanging around Joe's door, insisting they couldn't start without him. Since Yasu was the dorm's resident manager (always had to be in some seat of power or other), he swiped out his master key and commanded them to get out their phones in case they caught Joe naked or in some other nefarious act.

They hadn't caught him naked, though. They caught him lying in a pool of his own blood, his throat slit.

I watched them wheel out the body bag on a stretcher, feeling a bit disconnected from the scene. The blinking lights of the ambulance and cops hypnotized me. It could have been a party. Dancing disco lights. The glow of the light spotted skyscrapers towering up and behind could have been beautiful in a holiday sort of way.

But there was a boy who had been killed right above my head, and I couldn't help but feel that if I had known what that foreboding feeling had mean when it had passed through me in front of the library, maybe I could have stopped it.

Naru was a few feet away from me, talking to a detective, who nodded and jotted down notes in a black book, not unlike Naru did when questioning witnesses on a case. The detective thanked him, and then walked over to me.

"Did you know him?" he asked.

"No. I'd never even met him." The thought crossed my mind to tell him about my feelings in front of the library, then was squashed. This was a real world detective, not Naru. "I really have nothing to tell you. My boss and I had just returned to base from checking out the library."

"For ghosts," he stated diplomatically, but I could still hear the skepticism.

"For evidence of one, yes," I said coolly. I had never been able to remain aloof and unaffected as Naru could whenever faced with those who would mock our line of work.

"And do you believe this…ghost killed this boy?"

"Ghosts can't slit people's throats. I thought even you would know that, detective."

"But you've had people who've gotten hurt on your cases before. I even have it in my notes that the last case you were on, a priest suffered hydrogen sulfide poisoning."

"If you had read the case, sure, you would see he was influenced by the spirit of a man who committed suicide in the exact same manner. John Brown is a personal friend of mine who never suffered a suicidal thought in his life."

The detective raised one of his thin eyebrows. He was a generic appearing middle-aged man, with dark eyes, hair, and a thin mouth with lots of frown lines.

"That's a bit of a stretch, Ms. Taniyama. I wouldn't say you could know every thought in his life. But let me rephrase my question, then: do you think a ghost 'influenced' Jounchi to kill himself?"

"Why would it matter if you don't believe my work legitimate in the first place?"

He gave me a wry smile. "Excellent point. Very well, then. Since you seem to be a woman of my kind," he snapped his notebook shut and leveled a look at me that turned every line of his generic features into something sharp, critical, and not at all welcoming. "A bunch of ghost hunting kids walk into a dorm and a few hours later someone dies in the room above them. I ask again: do you really thing a ghost could have killed that kid? Or, perhaps, the soon to be married couple need their business to go well so that they'll have the money to fund their honeymoon."

He could have punched me in the face and it would have had less affect on me than the words he had just said. I had never experienced this kind of fear before, all icky and slimy like wet squid and worms, mixed with a patchy fury that struggled to get itself together.

I somehow managed to get my lungs working enough to push out, "Isn't it illegal for a detective to bait people?"

"Unethical, maybe," he clicked the top of his pen, as though out of habit. "I find I don't much care when homicide is involved."

"Then different question: is it illegal to punch you?"

"As I'm a cop, yes, aggravated assault and all that. But I'm still waiting for your answer."

I was cross between grinding my teeth and bursting into tears as I spoke. "I have no idea. As you so kindly pointed out, we just got here. We are answer a request by a friend of Joe's who I met trying out wedding dresses. I don't think I need to tell you we're plenty legitimate nor that I would never, ever, even consider harming someone as you're implying, nor would Kazuya."

"Ah yes, Kazuya, the famous Oliver Davis." Clicky clicky went the pen. "I saw the video where he smashed that aluminum brick into a wall. A knife would be much lighter, don't you agree?"

I couldn't hold it back. I had to.

I slapped him across the face.

Naru was over in an instant. It was a testament to his trust for me that instead of grabbing my hand and pushing me back, he stepped in front of me and glared down the detective, who had a hand to his cheek, but appearing unsurprised. My fingers tingled from the impact, and tears budded in my eyes.

"If you would please not provoke my assistant, sir," said Naru calmly. "We will end our contract with the college president once you are done with your questions. I think an adult like yourself can restrain yourself until then."

To my astonishment, the man smiled in satisfaction. "That won't be necessary. Forgive me, but I had to be sure you weren't a suspect before I begged your cooperation, Mr. Davis. I know a fellow detective when I see him."

I gaped at him. At least Naru had the mind to not betray his disbelief.

"I don't see how upsetting her proved that to you," he said.

"It's all about character. All the evidence in the world could mean nothing if your suspect doesn't have the character necessary to commit the intended crime." He inclined his head to me. "I apologize, Miss Taniyama, for provoking you. I never truly believed you or your fiancé could have committed the crime. It was just to be sure you weren't involved."

I made a very mature growling noise and wiped at my eyes furiously. "Screw you, I'm done with this."

"Stay, Mai."

Now I wanted to throw Naru. My face was flushed, tears smeared all over my cheeks, and several people were still staring at me for slapping a police investigator across the face and not getting cuffed for it, and still Naru couldn't stop to consider other people's emotions.

But, because he was my boss, and because a part of me thought Naru might come through for me in the end and say something particularly nasty to the guy in my defense, I folded my arms and tried to be inconspicuous.

"You don't want my help because you think it's a ghost," said Naru.

"The door was locked from the inside, the window was three stories up with no signs of having been forced, and all he had as forewarning was a supposed threat given by a ghostly red kanji. I didn't get where I am today by discounting anything before the proof comes in, but, yes, I find it unlikely that it was a ghost."

"Then why do you need my help?"

"Because this isn't just about a murder," he clicked his pen one last time before slipping it into his breast pocket. "If this isn't a ghost, someone is using a ghost story to cover up their crime."

"And you need me to disprove the story so no one else tries to use it too." Naru had that straight-lipped smile on his face he got when he felt particularly cocky. "I'm surprised, detective. You've only had, what, an hour since learning I was near the scene of the crime and already you know so much about me? You couldn't have read all that in the car."

"Like I said, I know a fellow detective when I see him." The detective mirrored Naru's thin smile. "I've been a bit of a fan ever since that old sinking school house case down by Shiguri High. Can't tell you how many times I was called to verify one of its freak accidents."

"That's nice. Are you done?"

Naru aimed a frown at me from over his shoulder. Usually it was me reminding him to mind his manners, not the other way around. But if he was going to act confuse, he should have bothered to remember that I don't just go around slapping people. Accusing people of murder when you're in the position to hold them to it is no laughing matter.

"I apologize again for my jibes," said the detective, inclining his head towards me. "It's alright, Mr. Davis. I did make a low blow."

"If that's, all detective, my team and I would like to take a look at the crime scene—mainly taking some temperature scans. We won't get in the way of forensics."

"Then be my guest. Tell them I sent you and they should let you right on pass. Oh, and one last suggestion, and this is between us: a camera or two in the women's dorm might get you a clue or two."

Naru gave a nod to show he understood, then took my forearm and moved us back towards the glass double doors of dormitory 2-B.

We didn't take the elevator. Rather, he pulled open the door to the stairwell. It wasn't till we were halfway up one and the door closed behind us that he turned on me.

"What was that all about?"

"The guy was an ass!" I said.

"Ass or not, you could have landed yourself in jail. Nothing he could have said should have warranted slapping him—you're an adult, for Pete's sake!"

"He accused you of using your PK to murder that boy so you can—"

"I don't care what he said. Contain yourself. Honestly, what is wrong with you this week?"

And before he could see just how hard that hit me, he had dropped my arm and was on his way up the stairs. I stood there even after the door to the third floor had closed behind him, the punch leaving an aching, raw hole in my chest.

That shouldn't hurt this much. I shouldn't be this sensitive. Should I?

Biting my lip to hold back the tears, I pressed my forearm to my eyes.

"What is wrong with me?"


	8. Cruelty or Just Bad Luck

**Just as a disclaimer, I'm a romantic and I hate soap operas. None of this...failed relationship screw it stuff. Just so you know.**

Chapter 7

We obtained permission from the all bones and business housing president to set up cameras and the like in the room where Joe was murdered. His roommate, who had been out visiting family, was more than happy to accept a new room when he returned. In the mean time, we signed an agreement that none of his belongings would be touched, though the forensics team looked as though they had already done plenty of peeking.

Naru and I didn't speak to each other. There wasn't really any need to. We knew our jobs and we did them. Lin had never been much of a talker, and Yasu was more than busy asking questions of all the residents, which, being boys, were more fascinated than shaken that someone had been murdered in their midst. If only I could adopt such levity.

Before I knew it, however, it was almost one in the morning, Yasu had turned in with the rest of the residents, and I was left with a groggy Lin and Naru in a monitor lit room. Feeling cold and numb, and since most of the dorm was unconscious, I figured I'd take my chance to take a long shower to thaw myself for bed. I didn't bother telling Naru where I was going. And why should I? I had done my job, and I was an adult, after all. I didn't need a supervisor.

The boy's bathroom facilities had shower stalls, thank God. I had this horrible vision of a tree of life sort of shower, but the stalls had thick, plastic blue curtains. I flung my towel and pajamas over the curtain rod and stepped in before stripping. The bland white lights reflecting off of all the white tile hurt my eyes. The water came out fast and too hot. I hissed. Stepped in. Then melted onto my haunches with a sigh, hugging my shampoo bottle to my breasts. It had been a while since I'd felt this weary.

Closing my eyes against the white, I allowed myself to settle into the hurt. Naru and I…was it even a good idea for us to get married? We fought so often, and if I was going to be this overly sensitive, how would he handle it? Wouldn't I just end up annoying him till he fell out of love with me completely? On that thought, why did he even like me?

I sniffed and snapped open my shampoo. As I did so, the solitaire diamond in my engagement ring glittered in the light. I turned my hand, watching it dance, before turning back to my shampoo. Foam and bubbles slapped onto the tiles and down the drain.

How many times would we have to say sorry to each other? How many times until we fell out of love?

Aching, I hummed a soothing tune to myself, one that I hadn't sung in a long while, as I hadn't needed to. It was a lullaby my mother sang, one which I hummed incessantly after she died in order to not lose myself in the darkness before sleep. I couldn't say I was much of a singer, but I could hold a tune as well as the next person, and it was just me and the suds to hear.

It worked. I was soothed. And drain.

I yawned as I shaved, scrubbed, brushed my teeth, and finished up. I kept up the hum of mother as I turned off the shower, dried off, and slipped on my oversized T-shirt and pajama pants that I had finally managed to get Naru to buy for me.

On opening the curtain, I found that I wasn't alone in the bathroom.

Swii's pale face smiled in a wan, empty glass sort of way. "Sorry. I couldn't help but listen. I swear I'm not a creep." And as though to verify this, he lifted up his toothbrush and toothpaste.

I shrugged and rubbed my eyes. To be honest, I didn't much care if he had been a creep. I was too tired. Too morose.

"I'm so sorry. About your friend," I said. "We're doing everything we can to help in the investigation."

He echoed my shrug and his empty smile fell away. "That's why I couldn't help but listen. Something tells me this sort of thing isn't new to you. Death, that is."

I just nodded. Father. Mother. Now working with a paranormal investigator.

Gene.

The name panged into me like a bell. My throat tightened with emotion. It had been so long…so long since I'd dreamed of him. He would've understood. He would have explained this to me. He would have pointed me forward with a warm hand. His soul had always been so warm.

I tried to not let it show as I told Swii good night and moved towards the door, but he stopped me with a plaintive 'wait.'

"Could you…" he hesitated, his face twisting my heart as it scrunched up in misery. "Tell me I'm not damned for this. For making fun of him."

"You didn't know. Besides, I'm not God."

"No, but…but you're…comforting. Could you stay with me? For just a little bit. Hum that song, maybe drop by my room—"

Just then, the door open, and Swii clammed up like an oyster. He snapped his attention to the mirror as though caught doing something he shouldn't.

I blinked blearily at the dark figure of Naru against the white blazing world of the men's bathroom.

"There you are," he said. "You could have told me where you were going and saved me the worry."

I sighed. "Sorry."

He frowned at me. Then he looked to Swii and his frown deepened.

"If you need comfort so badly, go to a psychologist, not to other men's fiancé's."

That woke me up. "Naru—"

He grabbed my free hand and pulled me through the door. I clenched my towel-wrapped bathing supplies beneath my arm with a sudden, renewed indignation.

"His friend was just murdered."

"And he was trying to play on your sympathies so you'd go to bed with him."

"And you thought I would?!"

"No." But he hesitated before he said that. There had been a whole pause in which I could have breathed in.

The raw ache in my chest yawned open and I yanked my hand from his. My eyes burned worse than ever, and my throat had clenched up to the point I didn't even dare to say a word.

"Mai—Mai wait."

I had given him my back and was heading to base at a quick stride. Just so I could avoid him calling me an immature child again, I flung my bath supplies inside by the door before continuing on towards the exit.

"Mai, stop!"

I couldn't not say anything. "I'm eighteen years old, Oliver, I can make my own choices. Just leave me alone. I promise I won't go fall in bed with anyone or die."

And that must have worked, for he didn't stop me. I was out and into the night like a burst of wind, and the slap of musky night air gave me breath enough to choke on an unwanted sob. I kept walking as fast as I could, wiping furiously at my face. I was pathetic. I really was pathetic, getting offended and upset over something like that. If he saw me crying like this it would just make things worse. I'd take a walk around the building and be back before he worried. It wasn't like I'd get kidnapped or raped or anything, and if I did, good riddance.

Why would he think I'd open my legs so easily? Was it because he had always been the one who insisted we waited until we were married? Hadn't I agreed with him? I had morals too, and if he hadn't brought it up, I would have. He had just beat me to the punch, that's all! But honestly, did he think me that desperate? That loose? That…that…

I hadn't realized where my feet were taking me till I lose my footing at a sudden staircase. Lucky for me it was only three or four steps tall, but it hurt all the same to catch myself at the bottom. I caught my breath against the pavement before I pushed myself up to rub at my eyes like a baby. Only once I had cleared them did I take in my surroundings.

Campus was empty. Orange artificial lights lit up the world in circles here and there, and just ahead of me, framed with trees and a lawn, was the university library, the only light the emergency lights behind the glass front doors.

Sniffling, I gathered my legs to myself. Crickets creaked song in the night.

It was the perfect opportunity for something creepy to happen. For a ghost to pop up or for a vision to come to me.

As though I knew it was coming, I closed my eyes and looked back into the darkness. A strange, but familiar feeling came over me like a wave, unbidden, but not unwanted. I felt myself disconnect and go adrift. The pale fake man-made lights died to give way to the gentle glow of distant fox fires. The world expanded, faded, and outlined with white lines and the blurr of colors as my perception filled in my surroundings.

The library stood before me, sleepy and bland. I stepped about it, crossing the broad distance in a few steps to go around back. There, a girl waited with short hair and willowy features, but she didn't seem particularly threatening, nor did she seem particularly good. She stood beneath the oak, watching as I approached, as though knowing I sought her out.

"Are you her?" I asked. "The girl who committed suicide?"

She nodded, but didn't say anything more. Just watched me.

"Did you kill that boy?"

She shook her head. And as though she had spoke, I understood the impressions of her that flowed through me.

"Of course you wouldn't," I said. "You didn't want to take anyone with you."

She nodded and opened her mouth, but the words it framed didn't come out. She frowned at the lack of noise, seemed to sigh, then shook her head and pointed up towards the library. Where her finger led me was to the window facing the deformed, grown over branch that was cut off before it could grow through the library wall.

A thrill of prickles, like electricity, ran through me, painful in the intensity. The girl had reached out to touch my soul, and the touch of her own hurt. At the same time, I could feel she didn't want to hurt me, only communicate.

Because somewhere in all that discomforting tingling and aching, there was love.

I opened my eyes, losing my grip on the dream or vision. The summer night fell back in, real, solid, and musty with the smell of traffic not too far away and still beneath the glow of the high-rise towers.

I stood up and wobbled on feet that had fallen asleep. I had never voluntarily entered a vision like that. Usually it came to me while I slept, and even then it was a gamble of whether or not it made sense. Maybe I was getting better.

Naru was waiting for me outside dorm 2-B's doors when I came back. Before he could say anything—I didn't really want to hear what he had to say—I told him about my vision, about how the girl behind the library hadn't killed anyone. If anything, she was just aching and…waiting. Whether that was to pass on or for something else, though, I didn't know.

"I'm sorry for running off," I said. "I just needed some quiet. I'll be more mature from now on."

I moved to walk past him, but, of course, he stopped me.

"What's going on, Mai? Why—why is everything so hard between us all a sudden? Please, if—if you could just tell me what to do. I—I know I'm an—an idiot with these sorts of things, I…Mai, I'm sorry, I do love you."

Since I was wondering the same thing, and also because it was probably two in the morning now, I just gave him a hug and went on inside without answering. He didn't have much chance to press me afterwards either, for the moment I hit my cot, I was out.


	9. Virgivitiphobia

**I don't want to ghostwrite. I just want to be left alone to write my fanfictions in peace. But, alas, I am poorer than dirt and have a very tall car insurance bill. *sigh* Life. Right?**

 **R &R**

Chapter 8

She came to me in my dreams. Rather than showing me something or drawing me into memories, she just stood there, speechless as before, too pale and opaque to stand in place of Gene, but not unwelcomed. There was something about her sad, large eyes and from her touch that told me she was of a kindred soul to me, though how I didn't know. Occasionally I'd slip into the normal nonsense dreams of the subconscious, but every so often I would drop back out to find her waiting for me, just resting besides me, unthreatening. It was almost as though she were there for my sake and not her own, because nothing in the way she looked at me or her mouth-framed words said she was in any dire need, at least not for the time being. That in and of itself comforted me, so when I woke at some odd hour of the morning, I felt more refreshed than I should have after only six hours of sleep.

My next surprise came in the form of Naru, who had breakfast waiting for me in a little paper bag along with a single, red rose. He had come over, handed it to me quietly, left a lingering kiss on my forehead, and then gone back to what he had been doing at the computers. A small note was inside, tucked between two whole wheat honey bagels and a little tub of my favorite strawberry flavored cream cheese.

 **If you will forgive me for being over defensive and insulting you so coarsely in the stairwell, I'll forget about the detective slapping business. If you don't forgive me, I'll forget about it anyways. I will never stop trying, and I will never allow anything to get between us. Please, I beg that you'll be patient with my imperfections and know I won't ever give up.**

 **There is only one of you in this world, after all. I'll only ever get one chance.**

 **Naru**

Ah yes. This was why I had fallen in love with him in the first place. He'd go off being arrogant, insensitive, cold, and just a general asshole, and then he'd turn around and pull off something like this.

Since Lin wasn't in, I took the chance to walk over, pull his head back, and give him one hell of an upside-down/Spider-man kiss.

"So," I said, as I munched on my bagel slathered in delicious strawberry cream cheese. "What's the scoop on last night?"

Naru had dropped his head in his hands after I had released him from my kiss attack. "Don't ask me that just yet."

I snickered. "Remind me to do that more often."

"Please don't."

"You don't like it?"

"That's beside the point, I—can we not talk about this?"

Oh yeah, his ears were red. "Why not? No one's here."

"Just…damn it, you're having fun with me. Yes, I liked it. I liked it a lot—too much, are you happy now? Can we be done?"

"Yes, boss."

"Thank you." He dropped his hands to stare at the screen of his laptop, face still pink. He blinked. "What am I looking at?"

"You're not supposed to let me know that. Naru must be omniscient, collected, and in control at all times. Tut tut."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "What would I do without you?"

"Probably be omniscient, collected, and in control at all times. You know, your general narcissistic, arrogant self."

"And significantly less happy. Ah, yes. There's my spot." He leaned forward and held his chin up on his thumb, finger across his lips and eyebrows furrowing. "There were a few cool spots behind the library, but it's always difficult nailing down temperature changes outside. There are so many variables involved when exposed to the elements. It doesn't help that a cold front passed through a few hours before hand. I hate meteorology."

"How about the halls and Joe's room?"

"Neutral. Lin's collecting temperatures and Yasu now. He should have more material for us to work with."

"What kind of questions was he supposed to be asking anyways? Or did he just, you know, tell the guys to tell him whatever they knew about who would want to kill Joe?"

"Oh, that reminds me of the other thing I had to do." He leaned back, folded his arms, and gave me his business face. "Our greatest suspect right now is Joe's ex-girlfriend. She, after all, is our only other witness to the liar sign."

"And you're telling me this with that look because…?"

"Well, girls have an easier time talking to girls, don't they? Here, I've managed to pull up her picture and the detective has been so kind as to get her schedule for me. Your job for today is getting in contact with her and gleaning as much information from her as you can."

"Aye aye, boss." I glanced at the schedule, then groaned when I saw that her first class would be ending in thirty minutes, after which there would be a good two hour block until her next class. That meant I had thirty minutes to settle myself outside of her classroom and try not to look like a creep ready to pounce an unsuspecting girl.

"Mai?"

I looked at him from over the schedule. He wasn't looking at me, but he shifted a bit.

"I would never suspect that you'd fall in bed with…whoever. Never."

I sighed. Oh. That. "And if I had thought for a moment, I wouldn't have said something stupid like that. I'm just PMSy. Porn shirt aside, though, why does Swii in particular put you off?"

"It's college aged boys in general. One in five women in college are raped, though that is probably more since %63 of all sexual assaults aren't reported. Just to add onto that, they decided to settle us into the men's dorm." He sighed and let his hand holding his chin fall away with a soft slap onto the table. "If anything like that ever happened to you…I don't think I'd…"

His voice was getting quieter and trailing away. He had turned his face away from me so I couldn't see his expression. Hoping he wasn't about to say 'I don't think I could marry you,' like some medieval philistine, I put my hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

"Think you'd what? Be able to not murder the guy?"

I heard him give a quick breath of a laugh through his nose. "That would be the least of it. I worry enough about your emotional and mental health with all these grim cases we go through without some dick-lead animal hurting you. I'm no psychologist, and even if I was, I couldn't fix you. I'm always…afraid…"

Kind of glad he wasn't looking at me so he couldn't see my smile (really, the man was just too cute), I twined my arms around him and nuzzled into the curve of his neck.

"You worry too much."

"Mai—"

"I'll be safe. I promise. If nothing else, then to protect you from having to go through that."

He made a low noise in his throat and he twisted his head around to press his cheek against the top of my head. "Strange how taking care of someone you love involves taking care of yourself. Keep your cell phone on hand. I'm guessing you're going to try and catch her out of her first class?"

"Yep. Guess I should dress like a super side-kick, right?"

"…yes?"

"I seriously need to educate you." I pecked him on the ear. "Don't let Yasu tease you too much."

I decided to save time by dressing behind Naru using the secret techniques of strategically keeping my Pjs on till the last second or pulling on pants underneath the large shirt. Even though he couldn't see, I had a good laugh as I noticed his ears turning pink again—quietly, of course. I should only trespass on Naru's pride so often.

Outside the sky was once more filled with storm clouds, which gave everything a twilight, shadow-less gloom. Students crossed here and there, interspersed with some on bikes or scooters. Some ran, some walked, and some sat on the steps, eyes to their smartphones doing who knows what. Luckily I had brought the campus map with me and used it as reference to jog my way over to the Humanities building and managed to get there right as I spotted the girl who Naru had shown me a picture of before leaving.

"Nanami Yui?"

She had been texting on her phone as she walked and flinched at the sound of her name. I waved at her and she gave a thin-lipped frown, or rather a strait-lip purse.

"Um…have we met?" she asked.

"Oh, no. I'm with Shibuya Psychic Research. We're on campus investigating the ghost story about the white girl behind the library. I just wanted to ask you some questions."

Her tense little frown didn't leave. She eyed me up and down, as though she could verify the truth from my old flats or flowery blouse and shrugged. I took that as a sign of compliance, so when she looked back to her phone and started walking again, I fell into step besides her, swinging my arms back and forth so my hands clapped in front of me and behind me.

"So...when you went behind the library with Joe—"

"Kami, I didn't kill him," she snapped—more like growled.

"Woa, hold on, I never thought that!" A burst kind of went off in my chest, kind of like a little star coming into being. A small voice echoed from there and up into my mouth. "In fact, I know you didn't kill him."

That gave her pause. I stopped my clapping as she halted in the middle of the sidewalk and instead clenched my hands behind me to hold them still. They sweated with nerves, but I didn't doubt what I had just said. Looking at her, from her messy black ponytail, the circles under her eyes, to the frumpy T-shirt, jeans, and pink flip-flops, I couldn't see whatever certain something would have told me she was a murderer.

Her mascara-smudged eyes looked from her phone to mine. Her chin dimpled a bit. "You mean that?"

I kept eye contact as I gave her the most reassuring smile I could manage. "I really mean it. I know you didn't kill him."

Then, to my alarm, her bottom lip curled, wrinkling her chin even more, and she started to cry.

"Th-that detective," she choked. "He…he said the most—I thought for sure I—and everyone's been looking at me all morning."

My own nerves melted, and even though we were surrounded by passing kids from her class and others, I hugged her. The poor girl just needed one.

"I know you didn't," I said, as they were the most soothing words that fit the moment. "It's okay, I'm not looking at you like that."

"But how—how do you know?"

"Well, it's going to sound weird, but I'm sort of…clairvoyant."

She flinched back, but not alarmingly so, and I let her go. She was watching me, sniffing, but didn't look as though she might smack me for saying that. "Clairvoyant?"

"Yeah, I don't spread it around, though, so…but, anyways, I've used it on cases before when we've had to find culprits to curses and stuff like that."

Her eyes widened. "Curses?"

"The company I work for considers themselves to be a sort of ghost hunters. We do exorcisms or disprove ghosts entirely. My boss, he's really technical. He has to rule out all possibilities of human interference before he will even allow himself to think that there are spirits involved."

She sniffed, and nodded. I took comfort from the fact that she didn't look as mean as before. Now she just looked a little like a tired raccoon. I considered asking her if she'd let me clean off a bit of her eye-make up that she clearly had slept and cried on and thought better of it.

"So you're here to…"

"To see if the story of the white lady is true, and, um," I had to look a bit apologetic at this point, because I knew how crazy it sounded. "And whether or not she killed Joe. That's why I wanted to ask some questions about what you saw that night with him, when that kanji appeared on his head."

Nanami Yui nodded and we started walking again. I handed her a handkerchief I'd started to keep on hand since Naru kept handing me one (he's British and posh like that and I wanted to show him up), and she thanked me while wiping at her eyes.

"I had suspected he had been with someone for a while, but it was this classmate friend of mine who really pushed for me to take him back there, as a distraction if nothing else. She said that she knew a girl who took her boyfriend back there and he got this red 'liar' on his forehead. When he died three days later from…I think it was a drowning out by the lake, but at his funeral she met the girl he had been sleeping with behind her back." She sniffed. "But, anyways…she told me she'd heard it was more potent on a Friday night because that was the night she died, and, well, I was really hurting. I didn't want him dead, I swear I didn't!"

"I know you didn't!" I hushed her as she started to sob again and thought I'd steer her towards the food court again. "How about some tea on me? I swear, I know you didn't want him dead. I've felt that feeling before—that burning icky, gut wrenching ache when you think your guy is cheating on you. I understand. Besides, you thought it was just a ghost story, didn't you?"

She wobbled a bit as we left the sidewalk to grass, as though her knees had gone a bit weak. "Is it just a ghost story?"

I shrugged. "We don't have enough evidence yet to say either way. But tell me what you saw. Everything, okay? It will help."

She nodded fervently. "Well, he…um, he wanted to, you know…and I said I wouldn't give him anything unless he took the walk with me behind the library. We'd been fighting a lot too and I told him I'd stop asking about who he was with and all that if he just took the walk with me. So, when it was dark—"

"What time would you say it was?"

"I think it was about ten—ten thirty. I remember looking at the time when my roommate texted me. We went down, and as we went beneath that big tree they say she hung herself from, this bright red 'liar' appeared on his forehead. It hurt my eyes, it was all shakey."

"How did Joe take this?"

"Well…I think he took it better than me. I started screaming all sorts of stuff, I was so mad, so—but the moment it went away he started saying I better not come trying to kill him in three days or nothing stupid like that and…well, he said all sorts of stuff. He even accused me of pulling a trick on him, of maybe sticking a friend of mine in a window to shine a laser on his head, but that's ridiculous. I mean, who would even own a laser pointer like that? Could they even make one of those?"

Some life had gotten back into her as we arrived at the coffee shop. The girl at the register gave her and me sympathetic nods and did her best to rush the order of warm chamomile milk tea our way. With our cups in our hands, we made our way past the various tables outside the shop and to a bit of shade underneath a tree nearby. It was still morning, but the summer heat was already growing. I wondered if tea was the right choice to get.

She seemed to enjoy it, though, and the taste also appeared to calm her considerably.

"Did you feel any changes in temperature? Maybe, I don't know, like something was wrong?"

She shook her head. "I don't think I could with how caught up I was in worrying. I was so afraid…but I told the detective I didn't have anything to do with him after that. I just avoided him."

Something tickled at the back of my mind, and even though I was concerned that it may be too personal, I followed the hunch, just in case. "I know this is off topic, but why did you think he had cheated on you?"

She sniffed, blew her nose on my handkerchief, then gingerly handed it back before answering. "When I was sick a few weeks ago, he went to this party with his friends, even though I didn't want to. He knew the people hosting it or something. Look, I'm not one of those girlfriends that gets all suspicious if their boy heads off to a party without her, but…"

When her hesitance grew longer into silence, I took a sip of tea and decided to wait. A string thin tension had been held up in the air, one that I could almost feel her balancing on, considering whether to jump off of.

"…you can keep a secret, right?"

I blinked at her. "If I think it might help in the investigation—"

"But you won't tell, like, the news or anything, right?"

I shook my head. "Of course not. My boss actually avoids the media like the plague."

She grimaced, but her heels started to bounce. A bit of tea jumped out of the small hole on the lid and onto her hand, milky gold against her pale skin. "There's this sort of…blog on campus. It was set up by someone a few years ago, I think by someone in the psychology department, but it's open to anyone who has a student account. There people can go and, you know…sort of confess I guess, though that sounds bad. Scratch that, that's not right, because it's a sort of safe place of where girls who were raped or molested or something can go and say something about it—anonymously. I think the staff on campus ignores it, or maybe they don't know about it, because sometimes the girls give names of guys and…" She hugged her tea down from her now bouncing knees and took a reassuring swig.

"His name was on there?"

"My roommate, she's really into it—something about girl's rights and awareness or…she said his name was there. That he had drugged a girl at that party, and…" She finally put her tea down on the grass. "Look at me, I'm shaking like an old washer machine! Ugh, and I'm sweating. This is awful, what's wrong with me? Why am I…" she hiccupped. Tears had peeked out from her eyes again.

But I knew why. Talking about it always made you relive the experience. She was admitting reading those words herself, that she had faced the reality that the guy she had loved had raped someone. She was facing the reality that he most likely cheated on her. And, maybe, it was dawning on her that he was now dead.

I gave her hand a squeeze. "I understand. You're being very strong."

She gave a dry laugh. "Strong! That's funny. That's hilarious."

"Do you think you could tell me where to find this blog?"

She nodded, attempting to pick up her tea again but changing her mind as she couldn't get her legs or hands to hold still. "You need a student ID to get in, though. You…you don't think that other girl killed him, did you?"

I shrugged. "My business is ghosts. I couldn't say. What do you think?"

She seemed a bit shocked by this question, but considered it with a deep frown. Her shaking calmed a bit.

"I don't think so," she said quietly. "That kanji on his head, I don't think they could fake that. And it was so bright—it was like fire. It was really, really freaky." She paused. "Is there a such thing as ghosts?"

I laughed. "You really want to ask me that? Man, do I have stories."

She smiled a bit at this, but quieted. "Would you like my number? I—if there's anything I can do to help…I mean, Joe was a dick for what he did, but no one has the right to kill anyone."

I said that would be wonderful and got it down. We talked for a bit more, me asking a few more questions about the situation as well as getting the name of the classmate who supposedly knew so much before she checked the time and said she had to get going to her next class.


	10. Reason, Purpose, and Rape

**Monsters are nothing compared to people.**

Chapter 9

When I got back, I remembered to tell Naru that I had dreamt of the girl from the tree that night before. He took it with a frown and decided to call Masako to see if she could drop by and get a view of the spirit. He then went about setting up equipment in base so as to keep an eye on the girl who supposedly had taken to following me around ever since I'd been to the library that night.

He seemed just as interested in the rape blog as I was.

"Good work, Mai. Not even the detective was able to get that." The corner of his mouth twitched. "Though it's quite obvious he doesn't have the touch with people that he thinks he has."

"So we can get the name of this girl, maybe we have a suspect with a, what's it called…reason? Jeeze, you'd think with all the mystery novels I read I'd have an amazing crime dialect. Really."

He rolled his eyes. "Rubbish like that hardly counts as edifying literature."

I harrumphed. "Have you ever even read one?"

"Yes. They're nauseatingly unrealistic and obvious from the beginning."

"You just haven't read any of the good ones."

"I'm also a genius."

"One of these days I need to record you when you say that. No one can sound so matter-of-fact while saying something so egotistic."

"That's because it is matter-of-fact." His attention turned to the doorway as Lin walked in with a few tin to go pans balanced in his hands. "Ah, lunch."

Trailing after him like a cartoon character riding the line of tasty scent was Yasu, who gave Naru a begging look. Naru shrugged and Yasu took that as invitation to scoop up one of the burritos the moment Lin lifted up the lid from the tins.

"Glorious, glorious Enrique's sweet pork burritos. Boss, I am shamelessly in love with your wallet."

"What's wrong with yours?" I asked. "Are those burritos expensive?"

"They don't give you money for being an honor student. I'm as poor a college student as it gets. My parents believe in making your own way in the world, you see. Think it builds character."

I grinned as he finished this with a huge, wolfish bite of the cheese-dripping burrito. "Looks like it just builds appetite. Man, am I glad I'm done with school."

"Oh yeah, you sa' somfing 'bout vat."

"Ugh, don't talk with your mouth full!"

"Which reminds me," Naru was much cleaner with his burrito. He put it on a plate and got out a fork. "What have you learned?"

"You're all business." But Yasu wiped off his hands on his jeans and pulled his backpack around. From inside he took out his slip of a netbook and flipped it open. As it booted, he twirled a string of cheese about his forefinger and sucked it off. "As per usual, they were wonderfully vague, but I did manage to trace the ghost story to one other death. I have the details written here along with witnesses that say he did the trial behind the library. His girlfriend in question was in an on and off again relationship with him. It was sort of a given that he got the sign, as they knew for a fact he wasn't picky about what bed he fell into, male or female, but he died of alcohol poisoning approximately three days afterwards."

"How long ago was this?" asked Naru.

"About a year and a half," said Yasu. "So it's reasonable to say the killer was the same person—if they are, that is."

"You said you had details, does this include place and time of death and the like?"

"Yes. I also got the name of the ex-girlfriend, though she's graduated since then and is working in a firm on the other side of the city."

"Email them to me."

Yasu grinned. "Already did."

"Wow. On top of it per usual," I said. "It's a good thing you're not Naru's assistant too or he'd probably fire me in favor of you."

"Nah. I doubt I'm as nice to kiss."

"One of these days, your attempts to rile me up will back fire on you," said Naru coolly. "I have one other thing I need you to do. Are you willing to lend us your student I.D. and password?"

Yasu relinquished them forthwith and, using the address I gave him, Naru pulled up a plain, black and red blog. No pictures or other decorations could be seen. It consisted of three pages: suspect, known, and unknown.

"What's that?" Yasu asked.

"You don't know?" Naru seemed intrigued. "We may have to do an evaluation of just how many of the students do. It was rather strange that that girl would be so secretive about it."

"No it isn't," I had quickly read through the first few entries on the default page, 'suspect.' "What would people say of her if they knew she had been on the rape blog? For whatever reason."

"'Ooo, you were raped?'" said Yasu.

"I'm rather at a loss as well," said Naru, who had clicked on the next page and scrolled a bit. "I thought the point of a blog like this was to glen support in coping with a horrible experience. Though, from what I'm reading so far, 'support' seems rather tame."

I wrinkled my nose at him. "Really? Though I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Look, most of the time when a girl is raped she feels like it's her fault, like being raped makes her some sort of slut or unwanted. There's also this fear that when she tells someone they'll ask for details to make sure it wasn't her fault, or that she wasn't just asking for it. Being raped makes you feel dirty as hell too, and some even wonder if any guy will want them after that. Also, some are afraid that by saying you got raped, some might convince you that you're just saying it as an excuse, or that guys will be afraid of dating you because you might just say they raped you or whatever. Course, there's other fears, but…" Naru, Yasu, as well as Lin, were staring at me. "What?"

"Nothing!" said Yasu, giving me a smile anyone would have interpreted as nervous. "Just, um, it sounds like you knew someone who had that happen to them or something."

I blinked. Then shrugged. "I just listen. And read."

Naru, who had an intensity to the way he stared at me, relaxed and looked back to the blog. "Once we find our victim's name I'll have Lin do a trace back to which student ID they used. Once we find this girl, Mai, I want you to do your thing."

"My 'thing'?"

"You know, be your sweet, compassionate self that everyone just wants to snuggle up to," said Yasu, preparing his last bit of his burrito for docking.

I was more than a little dismayed at this. "Whoa whoa, the dead guy's girlfriend was one thing, a murder suspect is completely different. Besides, you don't just go around asking someone if they were raped!"

"We don't need to know if she was raped," said Naru, who pushed the laptop back a bit so he could bring his burrito forward. "We need to know if she killed him."

"Oh ho, that's so much better."

"Mai, I brought you one as well," said Lin, pointing towards the lone tin waiting for me at the end of the table. He too ate his burrito with a plastic fork and knife.

I sighed and took up my burrito. I was hungry, after all. Even the prospect of interviewing a could be murderer couldn't distract me from that. As I ate, I read over Naru's shoulder as he found the post in question, sent it along to Lin, and opened up the email from Yasu. There wasn't much to the murder other than what he had already told us. A young man who died of alcohol poisoning at a party. Naru intermittingly scrolled down the email and took bites of his Mexican deliciousness.

"Why would someone from Columbia go to school here?" I asked, reading over the details.

"He was born in Columbia with his mother, who was also Columbian," said Yasu. "But he grew up here with his father. His mom had decided to stay there, something about Japan didn't agree with her, so they visited her every so often."

"Why didn't you include that in this?" Naru asked.

"I didn't think it was important. A lot of students here have half-Japanese heritage of some sort of another, or none at all. I've met quite a few Samoans, for example. Did you know they carry around pocket knives for the sole purpose of cutting up their feces because they're so large they can sit upright in the toilet—"

I choked half way through swallowing my first burrito bite. Sweet pork sauce burned up my nose as I struggled to clear my airway and laugh at the same time. Lin even started getting out of his seat to give me the Heimlich maneuver, but I managed just in time to get it down the right tube.

I couldn't tell which was funnier. The giant Samoan turds or the fact that Naru hadn't even twitched. Not so much as a smile.

"What, don't like bathroom facts, boss?" asked Yasu, who must have been on the same wavelength as me.

Naru didn't even grace that with an answer. He still had his eyes to the screen and his hands to the burrito.

Once I could breathe again, I went back to my own burrito. Yasu hadn't been kidding. These 'Enrique' burritos had to be the best Mexican food I had ever tasted. Maybe I'd have to get Naru to bring me back here sometime.

"I've got a name," said Lin. "Satachi Dainiche."

Yasu shook his head when Naru looked at him. "Never heard of her."

"I'm looking her up in the student database now," said Lin. "That was quick. She's a freshman majoring in Communications. I'll have to email the president for access to her schedule. Whether she gives it to me or not is a different story."

"I could always just email her student account. I don't know anyone who actually uses that, though," said Yasu. "In the meantime, I'll ask around about her."

"What about your classes?" I asked.

"Heading to one right now," he said, groaning as he stood and stretched. "My professor teaches a lower level communications class, so I can ask her. You got her name down on a piece of paper for me or something?"

Lin scribbled something down on a sticky note and handed it to him. Yasu thanked him, gave me a two finger salute, and set out. The door hissed as the hydraulic-thingy on the hinge slowed its closing.

"Well, if that's all," I stretched. "Is it alright if I take a nap?"

"Please do. We could use any information you can collect."

"Jeeze, no pressure." But I gave Naru a peck on the head anyways. "I'll be back. Bathroom."

There were more boys walking about this time when I headed to the bathroom. I considered walking the distance to the nearest building that had a girl's toilet, but figured it wouldn't be too big of a deal. They all knew we were here and that we'd be using their bathrooms anyways, so I walked in.

I instantly regretted it, as I walked in on Swii at one of the urinals. While I didn't see anything because of the stall walls, the trickle of urine came to an abrupt halt and he flushed red at the same time as I did.

"D-D-don't mind me, I'll just, um—" I moved to make an escape into a stall. Catching a boy peeing when you didn't see anything shouldn't be this embarrassing.

"No! It's okay, I'm just," he gave a nervous laugh. "Not many people use these anyways, and I, uh, I guess I needed to ask you some questions anyways."

I stayed still, hoping to redeem the situation somehow by showing some consideration to him. He zipped up and came about to a sink to wash his hands. I started getting antsy when he got to drying his hands and still hadn't asked his question. Bladder aside, I didn't want to linger in the men's bathroom longer than I had to.

Finally, he came my way to throw away his paper towel, holding onto it just a second longer. "Are you a virgin?"

I opened my mouth—surprise, indignation, and something like a rude comeback on its way out—and he pulled away the towel, opened his hand, and blew. White powder filled my face, my mouth, my nose. I coughed, alarmed, but the powder had been so fine I don't even think my airways noticed it was there. I could taste nothing, or smell nothing. My mouth almost instantly went dry, though, as though the white powder had sucked up all the moisture.

"Don't say anything," he said in sort of forced calm.

I went to tell him to shove it—but even as I thought it, it got lost somewhere. My mouth didn't move, and I started to feel…disconnected in a drowsy sort of sense. Had the bathroom tiles always been so white?

With the damp paper towel, he brushed off my face, and I let him without knowing why. My heart seemed to struggle to pick up its fearful beat, and something in the back of my head had started screaming, but I could do nothing. It was like I had been forcefully pushed out of the control station of my own body and now took a back seat to what was happening.

Swii threw the paper towel away. His hand trembled, but his eyes were bright. Excited. "Come on." He grabbed my wrist. His touch was hot.

And I followed him. We even passed by a few other boys who he smiled and nodded to as we passed, even moving down to holding my hand as though we were close. I could feel my face reflecting their smiles as I fought to cry out for help—to give some sign that I was being taken captive somehow. That something was happening.

 _Naru_. Oh God, please, let him come looking for me. Let him get overprotective or whatever, just let him come looking for me.

Swii led my willing body to the top floor and down to a room. He unlocked it and led me in, almost gently. Dim gray light bled through the blue curtains, revealing a single bed dorm room, with dirty clothes stuffed into the corners, a smooth, just made bed, and a closed laptop on the desk. The air was thick with that certain weird smell that I had picked out from day one, the something like smoke, but too musky.

When he closed and locked the door behind me, I turned to ice. My muscles wouldn't listen—I could hardly feel them, trembling beneath his grasp, sweat building up in my armpits and between my legs.

 _Naru! Yasu! Lin! ANYONE!_

"Lay down on the bed," he said, pulling me over towards the lone bed. Oh God, he didn't even have a roommate, so there was no chance of anyone walking in.

 _No! NO! What is happening—why can't I—NO! NARU!_

Quiet and docile as a mouse, I laid out across his blue striped comforter.

Swii's breathing had picked up and his eyes—I couldn't stand the look of his eyes. Hungry. Hot. Feral.

I wanted to be sick. I had to be sick. Anything to show my brain still had some connection with my body.

Swii took his sweet time pulling off my shoes and socks. A pointing bulge had already pushed out the front of his pants by the time he reached my shorts.

"Take off your shirt," he said.

 _NO! NO!_ _ **NO!**_

Naru said he was afraid of this. He said it would destroy him. He said it would destroy me—I had never had anyone in me before! I didn't want this, I didn't—I couldn't take it back—what if he—

My arms had already started to move to the hem of my shirt, tearing it off without a moment's hesitation. Swii groaned. His eyes ate up my breasts, and his fingers dipped beneath my bra. He tugged my shorts the rest of the way down and stuck his free fingers down my underwear.

 _WHY CAN'T I MOVE!?_

"That's so hot…" he was leaning in, reaching behind my back for my bra strap, his fingers digging deeper and deeper. "It's alright, babe. You shouldn't remember any of this."

 ** _NARU!_**


	11. When It's Not You

Chapter 10

Five boys crowded about me. The points of my bones had grown cold from the touch of the bathroom floor. The lights blazed into my eyes to the point they buzzed like an old tube television. Every bit of me had become covered in sweat.

Their lips were moving. One ran off.

I hurt. My abdomen hurt. It burned, right between my legs. I sucked in a breath, but it couldn't get past my throat. Suffocating, I rolled onto my side, clutching my middle—and threw up.

The boys chattering went alarmed. The one that had been in range of the sick had jumped back at the last second. Another boy retched, slapped a hand over his mouth, and clattered into a cubicle, where he too threw up. One asked the vomiter why he couldn't have been a man for just a moment while another got up to yank paper towels out of the dispenser.

And then there was Naru, dark haired and beautiful. He all but shoved the guy who had been holding my head away from my own vomit to pull me into his arms. It was only then that I realized how hard I shook. It was like my very bones were trying to escape from my body.

"What happened?" he asked.

"She's bleeding," said the boy Naru had brushed aside in a cool tone—as though trained for these sorts of things. "I think she just started her period. If she already had low blood pressure, the drop of blood could have been why she passed out, but you might want to get her to a hospital just in case she hit her head too hard."

He glanced up at the boy. "Were you there when she dropped too, then?"

"No, but I was just down the hall when the boys started yelling for help, and I'm studying to be a nurse so I felt I could be of some help. They said she walked in and just fainted."

"I was there," said another. "Nearly caught myself on my zipper, it was spooky. The pupil of her eyes just shot open—I could even see it from across the bathroom. I think she might've hit her head pretty hard."

I opened my mouth, but for what? This boy wasn't Swii. I had never seen him before. Had I really just passed out? No, Swii had had me. Swii had blown that powder into my face and had been yanking apart my legs. He had pounded into me—it hurt. It had hurt so bad. My stomach hurt.

Naru's face suddenly snapped to me, alert, tuned to me. It was only then I realized I had said something.

"Where is Swii?"

The two boys still in my sight frowned. They didn't know Swii, they said. The croaking voice of the boy who had just vomited answered though.

"Swii hasn't been around all morning. He's got this lecture block to set up in the atrium. I would know, I'm his roommate. He kept me up all night with that stupid project."

"Swii's the one with the funny smell, right? Is it true he's a pot pusher?"

"No man, I heard it's meth."

"Yo, roomie?"

"Hey, if he's doing drugs, he ain't stupid enough to stock them in our room. I'd kill him, and he knows it."

Naru's eyes didn't leave me. His arms had tightened about me, curling me to his chest until I could no longer see his face as he had tucked my head against the curve of his neck.

"How many of you were there when she fell?" Naru asked.

"Us three. Puker was in the stall, but he came out with his pants half on when he heard the commotion. Such pretty panties—"

"Shut up, asshole."

Naru grunted and lifted me. My stomach heaved up with him, but this time I breathed all the way through my throat and I didn't throw up. The words I was hearing echoed around my head. I hadn't left the bathroom at all. I had just passed out. The boys had been there to witness it. Swii hadn't even been in the building.

"Naru, how long was I gone?"

"Only five minutes. Just focus on breathing, you're okay. You're safe."

I thought this a strange thing to say, as I hadn't given any signs of panicking. I was just cold, weak, shaking, and in pain from the cramps I now recognized all too well. Aunt Flow had certainly picked a fine time to hit me. Oh god, and those boys had seen the blood. I just had to pick today to wear a mini-skirt. Please tell me I wasn't getting blood all over his arm and—oh god, I think I was going to be sick. Not all over his face, please not all over his neck. That's just what I needed to complete this day.

Naru had carried me out of the bathroom and down the hall by now. Young men from around the dorm had crowded outside in curiosity. I covered my face, stomach rolling.

"Please don't take me to a hospital," I whispered, afraid that if I spoke any louder my stomach would escape. "Please, just take me home. I want to go home."

"Mai—"

"My head isn't even hurting." Which was a partial lie, as it did feel a little bruised, but nothing that could have been concussion worthy. "Please. I'm going to be sick."

And right as I said that, I retched, hand over my mouth. Thankfully, my stomach had already emptied itself of most of its contents, so I didn't have much to hold back.

Naru's pace quickened. In a moment we were at base, where Lin held the door open.

"Lin, keys."

There was a jangle and the arms scooped beneath my knees jerked to catch something. That was some serious man skill right there. Catching keys while his arms were full of grown woman. Wait a second. I thought he didn't have a license? Oh whatever.

"Naru," said Lin, stopping him with a hand. Next thing I knew he had taken hold of my legs just long enough to wrap his huge jacket about my hips. It was just long enough to see that, yes, I had smeared blood on Naru's arm. I couldn't hold back a little cry of mortification which went unreplied by the men who were handling me like a paralyzed disaster victim.

"Let me down, I can walk."

"No," said Naru, readjusting his grip on me as he stepped out of base and made his way towards the double doors outside.

"Please, just let me walk—"

"Not while you're looking like death. What happened in there?"

My insides jerked as though trying to escape me. I must have reacted somewhat, for Naru's grip on me suddenly tightened.

"You saw something, didn't you?" he asked. "If you saw something, I'll take you home. Otherwise, it's the hospital."

I groaned. "Do you have to threaten me at a time like this?"

"It isn't a threat. It's the facts. You're not seeing what I'm seeing. So, do you got anything to tell me?"

His shoes clacked against the cement stairs. I could see the 2-B dorm building looming behind him, five stories tall, and of that ugly block cement design from the eighties. All the windows were tinted dark, and I suddenly wondered how someone could have scaled such a flat, ugly face three stories to slit someone's throat. It was all cement slab, no bricks or mortar that could have allowed any foot or hand holds.

My mouth moved without my brain. "Swii raped me."

Naru did something of a little lurch, as though caught half way between throwing me, running, and holding me tighter than ever. He managed to keep going, however, and the click of his shoes became the soft tap of soles on asphalt. We were almost to the van. I was almost home. Then I could curl up in my hot shower until the last bit of my flesh had run down the drain.

"Several witnesses said you never left that bathroom," he said, his tone tense and low. "Swii wasn't even in the building. I saw him leave earlier myself. And you were only gone five minutes."

I rose a hand to my forehead. It, like the rest of my face, had a thin layer of cold sweat. Something powerful rose up to my chest like a punch and I screwed up my face to contain it.

Naru somehow managed to open the passenger side door while holding me, and he handed me in. After making sure the jacket was tucked about my hips still, he ran a hand through my hair. It was hot and damp. I turned my focus from controlling the weird urge to howl to his face, which was watching mine. His breath was hard and quick, and his blue eyes shivered from point to point on my face.

"You're safe," he said. "Mai. Mai, love," he ran his hand through my hair again. "Love, you're safe. You weren't raped. You had to have been living another's experience, probably that girl who has been hanging around you. But…if you say you were, I will believe you." A flash of something frightening flared up behind his eyes. I found myself clutching at the fabric on my chest in sudden apprehension of what Naru might do if I insisted I had. Or rather, what he would do to Swii. A memory of the one time he had released his PK to destroy a god drifted through my mind.

"No…no. If it was only five minutes…" I had to force a gulp of air to keep going, as the intensity hadn't left his gaze. "He took me—her up to the very top floor, and the room he took…there wasn't a roommate. It smelled of him. And there were people who saw us—them, they would have said something, there was no way he could have gone there and back—and I came to right in the middle of—"

I stopped there, the memory vivid as winter ice against bare skin. Now that I was outside, back in the gray light of a cloudy day, it was easy to see that it had simply been another one of my visions. I could see the signs now. Still…

When the muscles of my legs started to hurt, I looked down to realize I had clenched them together so tightly they shook. Naru looked down as well and, after some hesitation, put a hand on my knee. It wasn't as comforting as I wanted it to be.

Was that how sex was? Would Naru act like…it had hurt so bad…

"How did he convince her to go upstairs with him?" he asked. "Did the vision start in the bathroom? Hold on, let me get in. Don't worry, Mai, I'll get you home. You're okay."

"Why do you keep saying that? I'm okay, I'm safe, all that?"

He gave me the 'you're stupid' look. Oddly enough, that oh-so-common droll stare was more comforting than the warmth of his touch. It reminded me who this man was. This was Naru. _My_ Naru. My gentle, shy, proud Naru, who had been so nervous about pleasing me in the kissing department he had spent a whole hour Googling 'how-to's. Not that he would ever tell me that. But seriously, I'm not stupid, and I do work with him…and he trusts me way too much with his computer.

The rumble of the van soothed me, like white noise.

"Seatbelt," said Naru as he clicked in his own. "Then talk."


	12. Devil's Breath

11

I did so. I didn't go into details after Swii had ordered me onto the bed, and Naru didn't ask, though I could feel a dangerous tension in the air. A part of me warned me that if I went any farther than that, Naru might break.

Mostly, however, we focused on the beginning.

"Can you tell me the consistency of this white powder?" he asked as we waited at a red light. It was only then that I took the chance to observe the oddity of seeing Naru driving. It almost made him look…normal. Cars had a way of doing that, I guess.

"Consistency? How was I suppose to get that when the moment he blew it into my face it was gone? And I was a little preoccupied with the fact that I couldn't stop myself from doing everything he said." I paused, then asked the question that terrified me most. "Are there really drugs that can do that?"

"One does come to mind, but from what I understand it takes the will from the victim. You're reporting you had plenty of will, but you were disconnected from it." The light turned green and he eased forward. He was proving to be a bit more of a jerky driver than Lin and the van jumped a bit before easing into a steady speed. "This could mean three things: one, the drug affected this girl differently, which would explain why she remembered the experience at all because scopolamine is famous for memory loss; two, you were only half a passenger to her memories so you didn't fully experience the effects of the drug, just the experience of being in a body taken with it; or, thirdly, this is a drug I haven't heard of yet with similar traits as scopolamine. Personally, I think the first is more likely, as it would give a traumatic experience to tie the girl's spirit back. The real question I'm concerned with, though, is whether it really was Swii or a symbolic representation. If it was the real him…"

"And what if she has something to do with the case?" I asked quietly.

He glanced at me as he pulled into the parking lot of my apartment building. He told me to stay put, but I felt I had gain enough of myself to walk, even with the increasing pain of my cramps. I made sure to tie the jacket around me and Naru didn't argue when I slipped from the front seat and gave him a nauseated, but stubborn glare.

"You have some painkillers on hand?" he asked, eyebrows ducking in concern. "Should I get anything?"

"This happens to me once a month. I think I'm prepared."

That just made his eyebrows go deeper. "I still think this much pain can't be normal. If you would just let me carry you—"

"Naru, I've just passed out in a boy's bathroom in front of a bunch of said boys taking a pee, thrown up all over their shoes, and started bleeding out of my vagina for all of them to see. For God sake, leave me this one shred of dignity."

That got him to back off. Though when I wobbled on the stairs and had to take a moment to clench my knees against the pain, he drew near again and even put a hand on my elbow.

By the time I had made the exertion to go up all those steps and down the terrace to my apartment, my pain had peaked. Whoever said exercise helped with cramps should be sued, or shot.

Naru stopped me from melting against the door in a heep of bloody misery when I realized I hadn't gotten my key from the college.

"I got this."

And from the key ring of the van, he picked out a key, pushed it into the door, and unlocked it. I gawked at him as he tugged me into the wonderful comfort of my she-cave.

"When did you get a spare for my apartment?"

"Since my dead twin brother pushed me out of my body and tried to take advantage of you in said apartment. I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea."

"You know that's on the level of creep, right?"

He chose this time to flash me one of his not-so-rare smirks that he pulled when he was trying to be particularly handsome. It worked, and I could feel my cheeks flush and even more heat go to my already burning lower abdomen.

I tried not to be swayed, but it's hard to keep up acts when you're in pain. "I take it that's your 'but I'm so sexy I can get away with creepy.'"

"Just tell me where your Midol is." He had wrapped his other arm around my lower back, as though ready to catch me. "You said a hot shower helps? Are you okay if I hand you some pills through the curtain?"

I was about to tell him that I had already gone through the mortification of bleeding vagina blood all over his arm, so being naked was nothing, but then a flash of being bare to the painful hands and limbs of Swii made my knees buckle. I suddenly felt like throwing up again.

Naru caught me. Good thing he's so stupid omniscient sometimes. Without bothering to ask, he scooped me up once more in his arms and carried me the short distance across my apartment to my bathroom. Lucky for him my happy strawberry peppered curtain was already pulled aside, and he set me gingerly into the tub.

"Meds," he said.

"Cabinet above the stove."

He walked out. I somehow managed to pull the curtain across the tub before allowing myself to be sick once more over the bath drain. Naru walked in about then.

"Mai, does…does menstruating often make you throw up?"

"No," I gasped, wiping at my mouth, tears beading down my cheeks. "No. No."

He didn't pull back the curtain, probably just in case I had somehow managed to strip in the time I was throwing up whatever could have been left in my stomach, but stuck a small glass of milk and two little blue Midol pills in. I took them, starting to weep uncontrollably. I cried because I hurt. I cried because I had thrown up. I cried because I was more humiliated than I had ever been in my life. I cried because I felt sick and filthy and couldn't forget the overwhelming wrongness of being violated. And I cried because…

Because that girl with the soft gaze, the one who I had thought meant me no harm, had raped me.


	13. Blood and Tea

**I'll do my best to get you the next chapter as soon as possible. ^.^ Though this story is turning out longer than I expected. All the clues have to meet just right, and there's always more space for horrible things to happen...**

12

I heard the squeak of the toilet seat as Naru sat down on it. He didn't say anything as I cried and peeled off my clothes, then turned on the hot shower. He took the empty cup, but I didn't hear him walk away. He stayed until the water ran cold and I was forced to switch it off. Then the toilet seat creaked and a towel was handed around the curtain, which I took. I caught his hand before he could pull it back.

"I love you," I said.

"I love you too," he said. "Would you like some tea? Plain water can be hard on the stomach."

I could feel my mouth twitch, but I had temporarily forgotten how to smile. "Oh the random things you know."

"…my brother…"

I cocked my head, though he couldn't see it. "What about him?"

"He…he'd have visions like these. Some would make him sick too. I know this sounds horrible, but I'm a little relieved that, at least in part, I know what I can do."

"That doesn't sound horrible."

"Tea?"

"Actually…could you stay? Just…just until I'm ready to get out…"

"Sure."

I hung the towel over my head as I watched the thinnest trickle of pink water run between my feet. I felt raw, as though I had been scooped out like a turkey and restuffed with filler and not myself. I didn't want Naru to leave. Things came when you were alone. And his presence there somehow eased the ache, because I knew of his concern and care for me.

When the tub's hard surface combined with my cramps started to nick at my breath, I pushed myself to my feet and wrapped the towel tight about me. The toilet seat creaked once more as Naru stood to leave.

"Wait…"

I pulled back the curtain, trembling, allowing the gray light from the tiny bathroom window to reach out to him. The blue of his eyes shone out against the pallor of his skin, and his hair, already reaching on the long side, curved about them, outlining them in art-perfect contrast. My hands looked somehow paler as I reached out to cup his face.

"My Oliver," I found myself murmuring to myself in an attempt to soothe the ache inside of me that I only partly understood. I brushed my thumb across his cheek bones; such sharp, proud things. His eyelids fluttered closed and he let out a swoop of breath.

"Yes. Yours. Always yours."

Yes. That helped. A quilt thrown over cold skin. Now just to wait to warm up; to wait until the pain passed. Everything would be okay.

Unable to help myself, I stepped into him and pressed my lips against his. He jumped only a little, and I had to smile as his hands fluttered about me, unsure of how to hold me dressed only in a towel as I was. The fact that I was still in a great deal of pain helped temper the mischievous side of me and I stepped back from him.

"Tea would be lovely," I said.

He nodded and left, closing the door behind him. It was only then that I noticed the jeans and loose T-shirt on the counter, complete with underwear and bra. I smirked. Now, when had he snuck out and gotten that?

I left the bathroom still smirking.

"I hope you didn't get too pervy of thoughts going through my underclothes."

The black dressed figure at the stove jerked. Ha. "I guess I don't have to ask if you're feeling better if you're well enough to tease me."

"Just so you know, that silky red pair I got because it was on clearance, not because I was thinking of you."

"That's not an excuse. You just want me to think about it."

I threw up my hands and started my little period-pain hobble to my beloved old loveseat. "Guilty. I take pride in being the only one in the world to make the almighty Naru squirm."

He turned around with two mugs in hand, unamused, as I had expected. He was forcing it, I just knew it. He didn't want to give me the satisfaction, even while I was down. "I need to see if Swii was the one in your vision or not. If he did use scopolamine, we have a timeframe of where to find your ghost, as well as a connection to the case. The white ghost girl died over thirty years ago, so we'll have strong evidence to disprove whether or not the murder was caused by her."

I sighed. "It's all business with you."

That got a thin-lipped smile from him as he made his way over and set the mugs on my little dollar store coffee table. "Once we know that, we'll also have a connection back to the murder case. But we still have girls to question and a list to compile of all the students that have died while attending Tokyo University. If this ghost is the white girl, then…that's a thirty years of work and we're no closer to solving our case than we were before. Knowing she was raped tells us nothing."

"Except maybe why she'd commit suicide," I said, curling around my mug of hot tea to breathe it in.

"Or why she would kill men," said Naru with a nod. "Though why they're only unfaithful men…I think it is more likely we are dealing with humans. People can be remarkably ingenuitive when it comes to murder. A locked door and window hardly counts as obstacles." His own cup of tea stopped half way between the table and his mouth, his eyes suddenly unfocused. "Unless…"

When he didn't complete that sentence and continued to frown at my poor TV-less stand, I prodded him with my foot. "You know how much I hate it when you leave me hanging."

"Unless this ghost is a girl who knows Swii, which means scopolamine could still be on Tokyo Campus, which means…"

My eyes widened and my stomach did a nasty squirm. "Could you make someone kill themselves with that stuff?"

Naru shrugged. "I can't see why not. Give him a knife, then tell him to walk into his room and slit his throat."

"Which means Swii could be our suspect."

"Possibly. Or," he took a sip of his hot tea. How he could do that before it cooled was beyond me. "Or it could be someone connected to the girl that possessed you. Either way, she's probably seeking justice for what was done to her, white girl or not."

I frowned down at my milky chai. Of course Naru knew how I liked it and had made it perfectly. "Wouldn't that make Swii a target too whether the murderer is a ghost or a human?"

Naru frowned at me. "I'm not following you."

"Rape and sco-whatsit drug. Rape is what could connect Swii and Joe. Does it even have anything to do with infidelity?"

"It has to if the murderer is human and wants to keep their cover. If the murderer is a spirit, however…" he groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Damnit. There's too many inconsistencies. What does the stupid kanji suppose to do with any of this? Unless that girl you talked to was lying."

I frowned. "I know she wasn't lying when she said she didn't murder him. I could feel it, just like with that hexer case three years ago. The voice in my chest."

"You don't have to explain it to me, I believe you. But either someone is lying or we need someone else to be killed in order to line up more clues."

Just then, his phone went off. Both of us looked stupidly around us as though we'd never heard the dry, business like ring before Naru remembered it and took his phone out from his pocket.

"Lin?" There was a max of thirty seconds, then Naru's expression blanched. "Right. Tell the investigator to test Joe's body for scopolamine as well as this one. If you could also give him our findings up until now, including the blog…I understand…I'll be there in a minute." With that, Naru hung up, put his tea down, and stood. "Wish granted."

"What?" I grew alarmed when it became apparent he was about to leave me. "Where are you going? What happened?"

"Someone found another boy dead. Apparently he died last night from loss of blood, but he had locked himself into his room to cut his own throat. His roommate just found him."


	14. An Unfortunate Trust

**Because in most cases, people are raped by those they trust.**

13

After a short fight, in which I milked my misery for all it was worth to get Naru to do what I want, I found myself hobbling up the steps to the dorm as evening pulled her skirts over Tokyo University campus, a grouchy Naru at my side. He knew he had been manipulated, and his stinging pride was now mixing with his concern for me. Add in a handful of cops and the most generic detective, with all his thin features and grim stance, and you got the she-demon of bad Naru moods.

"I see you've been doing my work for me," he said wryly as Naru came level with him. "Could it be that Ms. Taniyama really does have clairvoyance?"

"And a comforting way with people," said Naru. "Perhaps you could take notes, if nothing more than to save yourself from a few more punches from little girls."

The detective's mouth twitched and I made a mental note to do something seriously nice for my man.

"So, this rape blog—"

Naru cut him off. "Do you have the results on the scopolamine?"

"These tests take time—"

"Then you must not be as serious about stopping more students from dying as I am." Naru inclined his head. "So, if you would excuse me—"

But just as he moved to pass the detective, the older man took hold of his arm in a very authoritive, movie-like gesture. I had another burning contraction coming on so I stopped caring for a moment as I focused on not making it known that I wanted to writhe on the ground in pain.

"'Visions' aren't evidence," he growled, and once more I saw the asshole I had first perceived him as. Perhaps it hadn't been an act. "And I can't keep giving out confidential information to a ghost hunter."

"Then put me down as a psychic consultant. The police still do that, don't they? Or is it palmistry?"

The other man's eye twitched. "I respect you, Mr. Davis. You're smart. But be careful how far you strut, you're still a kid. And for God's sake, don't go throwing around that drug's name like it's candy. The reason the tests aren't in is because we don't have the means to do the test, we had to order them in. Drugs from Columbia don't exactly chippity skip cheap and common to Japan, you know."

Naru had tugged his arm out of the detective's grip, but suddenly froze. "What did you say?"

"I'm saying the drug isn't common enough to keep tests around—"

"No. You said it's from Columbia. We're still talking about scopolamine, correct?"

The detective's mouth frowned, taking full advantage of the pronounced lines. "Yeah, the Devil's Breath, Crocodile something or other. It's made in Columbia from some drunk tree, why?"

"Excuse me, sir. I must check something. If I come upon anything, I will contact you."

"Wait, weren't you going to ask to see the crime scene—"

"I think anything important I can get from you." Naru leveled a cool stare over his shoulder. "So, if you would please be thorough in your reports, that would be much appreciated. Mai, are you holding up?"

I flinched in the act of wrapping my arms around my middle. I could feel sweat beading on my forehead, but I gave him my best smile. I don't think he bought it. He put his arm about me and led me inside the building, the common room of which had become stuffed with students, jabbering about the recent murder. Somehow, despite the various stares and pointing, Naru managed to shuffle us past without any interruptions and back into base, where we found Lin dutifully at the screens. Yasu sat backwards on a chair besides him, watching him type away.

"Hey, big boss," said Yasu with a weak wave. "We've pulled in the cameras and set them up in the hallways like you asked."

"Take them down."

Yasu blanched. "Wh-what?"

"Whoever committed the murder is probably long gone from this building now, and it isn't like surveillance is going to help much. What can you tell me about the victim?"

"Um, well…not too much. He wasn't exactly in my crowd." At Naru's cold stare, Yasu rushed to excuse himself. "But I think I heard the guys saying he had a girlfriend. I could ask around, see if he did the test behind the library."

"Why you haven't done so already is beyond me. I suppose I'm the only one taking it seriously that someone has died here."

"Naru," I hissed. "Pull back on the jerkiness."

In response, Naru just strut to Lin's side. I exchanged expressions with Yasu and gave him a helpless shrug, to which he smiled to.

"You doing alright Mai? You're not looking too good. Maybe you should have stayed home."

"Well, since I'm the only one on the team right now who has any, you know, spirit-sensing abilities, at least until Masako drops by tomorrow." Which reminded me of something. "Hey, Naru, wasn't your mom suppose to come by and watch us work today? Her plane is leaving in the morning, shouldn't you be with them?"

"Father and her decided not to on reviewing the situation, as murder isn't exactly a tourist attraction," said Naru curtly. "I thought I told you that. In fact, I'm certain I did."

"Uh…" And I was certain he did not, but I had more pressing matters on my mind—like sitting down before my cramps forced me to. Damn Midol, what a joke. Why couldn't they just give me morphine? Oh yeah, addictive crap that could make you a brain-dead, drug-sucking zombie. At least I would be a pain-free zombie.

"Yasu, before you go, you said the other boy who had died was from Columbia, correct?"

"Uh, the one who died from alcohol poisoning?"

"Yes, think quicker, won't you?"

"Yeah. Mom was Columbian, he was from Columbia—"

"You said he'd visit her occasionally?"

"Did I say that? It should be in my email. Why?"

But I was following Naru's train of thought. "The source of the drug! What if he brought it in—"

"—and was killed by it as well," finished Naru. "Made to drink until he died. It's only been a year and a half, the killer could have gotten the drug from him, used it against him. Yasu, which room is Swii's?"

"I haven't seen that guy all day—"

"Room, Yasu."

"26. Second floor."

Naru nodded and went to move, but paused as Lin spoke up.

"He's in camera six, coming towards the south entrance."

"Thank you." Naru strode towards the door. I stumbled up from the chair I had sunk into.

"Wait! You shouldn't go alone!"

"Stay, Mai." He practically threw open the door, but I was out before it even shut, surprising myself at my own speed while having an inflamed uterus. What could I say, I was a tough one. Besides, the idiot had forgotten that Swii could have anything on him, including the drug that could make Naru do anything, including kill himself. Like hell I was going to let that happen.

We went down a few halls I personally had not been down before that headed towards the back of the building. The chattering of the students in the common room grew muffled as more walls were placed between us until we came upon a poorly lit back room lit by the faces of a soda dispenser and a vending machine. Outside I could see the faint flickering red light of our recording camera, cleverly hidden into the hedge of bushes that lined the sidewalk leading to the glass back door.

And through the glass, a figure shuffled up, his head swinging.

Naru didn't pause. He threw open the door just as Swii was reaching for it. Unfocused eyes met Naru's and a sloppy sort of smile spread across his face.

"Oh, the ghost man! That means," his gaze went past Naru and fell upon me. I instantly froze up, a horrible black pressure, like something hard and heavy had come down to press in on all my sides, pushed my heart rate to the sky. I could remember his hands. I could remember his devouring eyes.

"Eyes here." Naru grabbed the man's shirt and jerked him out of the doorway, forcing Swii's focus on him at the same time. "Did you ever use a drug called Devil's Breath?"

The drunken face blinked, shuddered, and the smile fell. I couldn't help but wonder why Swii had gotten himself so plastered, and where.

"When did you get so mean?" he asked

"Mai, describe her."

I flinched. "Short brown hair, kind of l-lanky or willowy. She had a button nose, with freckles, and—and she was shorter than me. You blew white powder into her face and—and…"

Swii had gone back to staring at me, but I could tell he wasn't seeing me. His eyes had widened to the point that I could see the whites all the way around the dark sphere of his iris. His complexion went a bit green and his legs shook so bad it could have been comical.

"You took her upstairs," I said, clutching my hands so hard I thought they might break. "Up to the top, to a room. She did whatever you said because of the powder. You took her to that room and told her to lay down on the bed and take off her shirt—"

And like a great chasm of earth, his face split open into a scream.

" _What the hell are you!?"_

Naru was shoved back. Swii's fists had gone wild, arms like solid clubs, his white gaze and flopping body streaking at me, screaming, screaming—

And Naru was back with a punch to the back of the guy's head that cracked through the room like breaking stone. Swii dropped like a bag of sand.

But it was Naru's face that now took up my terror. His lips had curled back in a wild, open mouthed snarl I didn't know it could make. His skin had wrinkled up from the force, turning his eyes to dark slits and flushing his skin with color.

"Guess that answers our questions," he said.

I, however, grappled at my throat that had constricted up with panic.

"N-Naru, what was…" I could hardly speak. I couldn't believe how afraid I was. My voice just wouldn't work.

Something was in front of me, and it wasn't my Naru.

That horrible, wild face turned to me. "What is it?"

I could see it more clearly now. Somewhere from the back of my mind, Masako's voice echoed up from my memory, back from the bloodstained labyrinth.

 _'Since we were talking about them, a spirit in this house possessed you.'_

What had she done then? I had to calm myself and do that now, because Naru's attention was turning back to the fallen Swii, and I thought I could see his nose wrinkling and his teeth beginning to flash once more.

"Stop. You've done enough."

"Hardly," he hissed. "This isn't anger, this is beyond anger, beyond fear, this isn't human."

If only I knew her name. I should be able to call her name, because it had to be her. I had to stop her—I had to stop Naru—

Just as I thought that, the glass on the vending machine besides me exploded. Bags of chips flew everywhere and the lightbulb burst.

Mini explosions, like enormous contained pops, started going off in the soda machine. It vibrated and wobbled. I could see the air about Naru changing as he pulled back his leg.

Oh God, she had unlocked his PK.

"Stop!" I flung myself foreword, reaching for him. "You're going to hurt him!"

"That's the idea."

The air about him almost seemed to resist me as I tackled my weight into his side, throwing him off balance at the last moment, sending his kick grazing over Swii's side. We landed in a heap on the floor and the soda machine gave a cacophony of pops and moans. The glass on the back door had started to hum.

"Not him! You're going to hurt Naru!"

Naru's face whirled about me to give me the full brunt of his wild, inhuman snarl.

"Get off me!" he growled. "You of all people should understand— _you of all people!_ "

"And you're a freaking bitch for pulling me into that!" I shrieked, bringing my hands about for the nine cuts as I straddled him. "Get out of my fiancé' or I swear I'll exorcise your ass to hell!"

The wrinkles fell back and he went stiff in surprise. I raised my two fingers above my shoulder.

"I was going to help you anyways," I said. "And I can forgive what you did to me, but unless you get out of him right now—"

The glass door shattered with a bang.

Glass shards zipped past. I threw myself over Naru, covering every inch of him that I could with my own body as the glass plunked and bounced off of me. The soda machine gave one final pop and went dark, and some of the dark long phosphorescent light bulbs tinkled in their covers as they shattered as well.

And then there was silence. Nothing exploded. The thick air about Naru shrunk back and I finally felt like my flesh was reaching his.

Something blew past me, like a wind, and I felt the urge to lift my head.

Standing in the broken doorway was the willowy girl with the soft, sad eyes. Once more I didn't feel any threat, nor did I feel particularly safe. She was null and pale as moonlight.

She covered her face with her hands.

" _I thought you'd understand_."

I blinked, and she was gone.

And I became hyper aware of Naru's labored breathing beneath me. I rushed to get my weight off of him, noticing the new streams of blood trickling down my arms as I did so. Swii still hadn't moved from his unconscious position on the floor.

"Naru!?" I clutched at his too pale face. One of his hands had slid up to his chest, clutching at it. "Naru? Naru, speak to me, are you okay? If you don't say anything, I swear I'll…I'll…"

In answer he groaned, his eyelashes fluttered, then went still. His hand went limp.

Every inch of me went black ice cold.

Ignoring the blood now smearing all over my palms, I grappled for my phone. Already I could hear shouts and footsteps down the hall, but I already had Lin's number to my ear.

Upon the gray tiles, glittering with broken glass that reflected back a dozen half-moons, Naru's face blended in, the perfect gray of death.

 **And you trusted me...**


	15. Alone With But a Voice

**Sorry about the typos and stuffs. Too tired to edit. Narrgh..edit tomorrow...maybe...sleep**

14

I found myself alone in a hospital room, patched with stitches, bandages, and leftover numb warm bits of flesh from their work. I still wore my bloody clothes, as I had nothing else to wear and no desire or need to stay in the hospital. Yeah, I had cuts all over me from flying glass and it made my head spin to stand, but…

I had already asked if I could see Naru in intensive care, but not even a spouse was allowed at this crucial moment. That, more than the blood loss, made my head spin.

The next time I saw him…he could be dead…

I thunked the heal of my hand against my forehead, screwing up my face against the turmoil within. It was almost like Naru simply wasn't meant to live in this world without Gene. Perhaps that legend about twins sharing a soul was true. Too much power for just one body…but what connection could replace that between twins?

Someone knocked on the door.

"Come in," I mumbled, though I didn't see why anyone would knock. It wasn't like this hospital room was my bedroom or anything.

When the thin-brow detective walked in, I wasn't surprised. I wasn't happy either.

"I'm sorry for disturbing you at this time of night," he said (again, this wasn't my house). "But I still had some questions about the investigation I think only you can answer."

"Because the other one is unconscious?" I said, as dry as a desert.

"I have already questioned his assistant, Lin. Any data he could have had, I've seen. You on the other hand…" He pulled over the wheeled stool the doctor had been on just moments before to wheel about from one of my cuts to another. "I hope the seriousness of what's going on will help you answer this question honestly."

I waited, watching the shine move about on a balding patch I hadn't noticed before, right on the peak of his scalp. I realized then that I didn't even know this man's name. He had always been labeled under 'the detective' in my mind.

He leaned onto his knees like a grandfather about to ask a small child a serious question.

"Are you really clairvoyant?"

I wanted to be sarcastic. I really did. But something about losing a pint of blood and possibly your fiancé as well had a knack of sucking up your snark energy.

"Yes." I said. "What do you want to know?"

"I need you to identify the girl you say that Swii kid raped. I have a list of pictures here."

"I can do that."

"Also," he hesitated. "Was it really you who found out about the scopolamine?"

"I take it the tests have come back?"

He made a noncommittal grunting noise that almost sounded impressed. "I figured since you were right one time…now, to the pictures."

From within his coat (very traditionally detective-y of him), he pulled out a handful of your regular 5x7 pictures. They all had the same generic blue-gray background for a school ID. He handed them to me and I mechanically went through them, then handed them back.

"None of them."

His eyebrows flew high. "Huh."

"What?"

"Nothing. Though I think I have one more picture."

And out from the other side of his coat he pulled out the willowy girl. Despite the smile that completely changed her looks, I knew her in an instant.

"Are you really here for my help or just to put me through tests?" I asked dully.

"Is this her?"

"Yes, it's her, and you already know that. What do you want from me?" I couldn't help my question coming out in a pathetic whine. All I wanted to do was go to Naru and curl up next to him. I just wanted Naru.

"Just had to be sure." He gave me the picture, surprisingly, and I stared down at her face. I should feel something. I knew I should. This girl might have killed Naru. But all I could do was ache for him. "Do you know how this girl died?"

"No. Though I suspect its suicide."

"Right again, you are very good. She slit her wrists when she discovered she was pregnant. Her parents and friends assumed she had met a guy at a party or experimented without protection, because she didn't have a boyfriend at the time."

A centipede-like crawl trickled up my spine. _Oh god…_

The phrase suddenly yanked up John to the forefront of my mind. An upsurge of desire took hold of me. I wanted to see him. I needed John. He would be able to make sense of it—to purify it, in a way, with the mere presence of his earnest goodness. He would say something about God and heaven and beautiful things like that. Maybe he'd even bow next to me and say a prayer that would promise me that Naru would live, or at least give me hope.

The detective I didn't know the name of continued speaking. "We traced her back to the rape blog you also helped uncover. We were able to trace out several other…stories or hints of the use of scopolamine, and we think the suspect has been singling these out for revenge. Our number one suspect right now is Jounochi's girlfriend at the time he died—"

"She didn't kill him."

He gave me a pointed stare. "How do you know this?"

"I just know. It's the sixth sense thing. Sometimes I just know."

"Well I can't let her off based on a 'I just know.' Can you suggest anyone else that could be doing this? We've already verified that Swii did not kill Joe or Carlos, who we assume introduced the drug to the campus. He came across the drug when it was confiscated by the resident RA as cocaine. He says he learned what it was from the kid who it had been taken from, who we're also bringing in for questioning, but so far he has no reason to kill Joe."

The information drifted through my head like elevator music. Nothing sparked a response.

"I still don't know why you're telling me all this."

"You're clairvoyant, aren't you? I could use any hint you could give me about now. Any chance at one of these…visions? Off record, of course."

I ran my hands down my face. I just wanted him to go away. I wanted to find somewhere dark and secret to recooperate. "I only get 'visions' when I sleep. The one that happened in the bathroom was a possession. If you want me to look into anything, check with me in the morning, though I doubt I'll catch any sleep tonight"

He frowned. "You could ask for something to help you to sleep from the nurses."

"How about this, I'll drug myself into a coma if you can just get me to my fiancé. I'll do anything you want, even."

I regretted saying it when his stupid, annoying 'grandfather' face went all wonky with pity.

"Oh, that. Well, I don't really know what happened to him. I don't think I can do anything about the hospital policies."

I sighed. "It was worth a try. I'll try to sleep. Here," I handed him my phone from my pocket. It still had dried smears of blood on it. "Put in your number. I'll call if I get anything."

He did a good job at ignoring the blood on the screen as he typed it in, handed it back, and gave his good-byes. Then he was finally out.

I slipped off the bed and went after him. They had already told me where I could wait to hear about Naru, and as I headed there, a bit breathless with the black rush of low blood pressure, I brought up John's number.

It rang three times before he picked up. "Hey, Mai. What's happened? It's a little late to be calling."

His Australian accent rolled over me like a warm bath. Before I knew it, before I could even start on controlling myself, I started to cry, all by wailing into the mouth piece. He gave gentle shushing noises, saying he couldn't understand me and to breathe. Passing nurses tried not to be too obvious in their concerned looks. Somehow I managed to blubber out about Naru, though I couldn't even begin on the case. I didn't want to talk about the case. I wanted everything that had to do with that stupid girl to disappear so I didn't have a reason to feel sorry for her.

"I wish you were here, John," I sobbed as I fell into a chair in the waiting room. "Ayako, Takigawa—they're all busy with their full time jobs, and Yasu's back at the school talking to people with Lin and—"

"Shh, it's going to be okay. I may not be there in person, but I can hear you just fine. If you want we can say a prayer. Would that help you feel better?"

I almost laughed with relief. Somehow, he had read my mind. I told him that would be lovely and followed his instructions to just bow my head and focus my thoughts to God. I could hear him shuffling in the background and imagined he was kneeling down wherever he could.

There was a quiet that stretched almost too long before I heard his quiet murmur.

"Oh God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, we come before thee today for comfort and for thy blessing. Please give the comfort of thine angels about Mai during this trying time, as well as strength to thine son, Oliver Davis." He paused for a moment, in which I wondered if he had lost his words. But then he picked up: "At this time I also ask of thee to bless Mai with clarity of mind and direction in solving the mystery which troubles her and her clients at this time. I...I believe she is plenty able to find her way, but sometimes she can lack confidence or be distracted by caring for the troubles of others. Please, lead her. Guide her. Walk besides her.

"And we ask these things in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen."

"Amen," I whispered back into the receiver. Tears still streamed down my face, but for a completely new reason now. A warmth, almost on the side of burning, had welled up in my breast and filled me down to my very toes. Perhaps this is what they meant by the spirit of God. Or, perhaps, it was simply hearing of John's faith in me.

"Everything will be all right, Mai. If I could I'd fly over there, but…I don't think that would be appropriate at this time."

I smiled at how awkward he sounded, but I could feel my mouth struggling. It wasn't really anything sweet, but painful. After all, it wasn't a happy reason that had taken him to Australia, and suddenly I felt guilty for having called him up like this. He didn't need to be hearing my voice.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Good heavens, what for?"

"I'm the reason you…you know."

"That is not your fault by any stretch of the means and never will be. This is my cross to bear and mine alone."

"Yeah, but…if you hadn't met me or—"

"Don't, Mai. Nothing will ever make me regret meeting you…please, don't be sorry. You're supposed to be flattered. Most girls would be flattered, wouldn't they? Oh no, that sounds really arrogant of me, doesn't it? I mean, I don't know if a girl would be happy—oh Lord, I'm putting my foot in my mouth."

I giggled and wiped the tears off my face. Just then, a nurse in blue scrubs stepped out from the doors, spotting me and starting my way. I couldn't read anything on his face.

My heart just about vanished altogether.

"I think they're going to let me in now."

There was no way John could have missed out on the meaning behind me tone. "Call me. It'll be okay."

"Thank you, John."

"Mai?" said the nurse. He had been the same one who had refused me entrance when they had rolled Naru in. "Come on back. He's stable."

I nearly fainted with half-born relief. Stable was good, right? Right?

I stuffed my phone into my back pocket and wandered after him. He gave my bloody, cut clothes a disapproving frown.

"We're going to need to get you into some scrubs before you can be back there. Why didn't the girls up front lend you some? Ugh, and everything we got is going to be huge."

"It's alright." As long as Naru was okay, he could dress me up in a freaking clown suit, for all I cared.

I was allowed to keep on my underwear, though the nurse had been right. The smallest size they had swallowed me. I had to roll up the pant legs three times before I could walk without green cotton scrub slippers.

Naru had been moved from one of the major ICU rooms and into a temporary room given to those who have passed the worst, but were still being watched. He wasn't stuck up to tons of machines like I had imagined, but he did have one of those breathing-nose-tubes and an IV. He had been dressed in the bleaching hospital gowns that always made people look worse and paler than they really were, but at least he was white instead of gray.

He looked like he could simply be asleep. A heart monitor reported a regular, 58-65 resting heart rate.

"His doctor assures us he doesn't have any heart conditions," said the nurse skeptically. "But seriously, it was all over the place for a bit there." He left it hanging as though waiting for me to shyly admit that Naru did recreational drugs on the side. When I didn't say anything, he gestured me to the chair, muttered something about other patients and pushing the button if I needed anything, and left.

The moment he was gone, I slipped off my shoes and climbed onto Naru's bed. Careful of his right side, which had the monitor and IV, I wriggled myself into the little room on his left side and tucked my face into the crook of his neck. The first whiff of his tea and sage smell was like my first breath of fresh air. Every muscle in my body uncoiled. Fighting not to cry out of simple sheer relief, I dared to lightly drape my arm over his lower stomach, afraid that if I put any weight on his chest I could affect his heart.

"You owe me so much ice cream," I said with a sniffle. "Strawberry. With chocolate shell-stuff."

His skin was warm against mine, and that comforted me enough to allow the waiting exhaustion to pounce. Blackness enveloped me, edged with the throbs of my cuts as the numbing agents wore off.


	16. Don't Stop Me

**I'm writing now because I don't know how my family is going to afford our bills for the next year my husband is in school. I'm at a loss of what to do, my dignity is at an all time low, and the only thing I have left is to write and write and write.**

 **Maybe there's something in me that thinks the end of this story will make things clearer.**

15

And she was there, waiting, among the background of distant foxfires. She didn't draw close, and nor did I want her too. I had work to do anyways and only a slight inkling of how to do it. Without Gene to guide me, the spiritual plane was little more than a black abyss.

"What did Naru say?" I closed my eyes, but it didn't block out the iridescent glow of the foxfires, or the presence of the girl, watching me. "It's based off of perception. Damn it, I can't control how I perceive things—I mean, where do I even start?"

Wishing for Gene, I opened my eyes and started walking. Something flickered in the corner of my eye, and I turned to get a better look. Just like that I was standing in the sunlight before a huge, beautiful maple tree. I gawked up at the leaves to see what could only be a younger, gangly Naru dangling from the tree branches. No, but wait, there was another Naru at the base of the tree, reading a book. They both wore jeans, though one had a black shirt, and the other a pale blue.

 _Gene._

"So?" asked the twin in the tree.

"Let me finish," said the sitting twin flatly, turning a page. When I drew closer and ducked down to see the cover, I saw the embossed words of _Pride and Prejudice_ , by Jane Austen on a plain, black faux leather cover. He couldn't be old enough to be reading Jane Austen, let alone have any interest in romance. The kid had to be, what, thirteen? Fourteen? This one had to be Gene. Though I had never thought Naru to climb a tree, though I could see it if he wanted to be alone.

"You're reading the editor's afterwards," said the above twin dryly. "So come now, you stupid scientist. _Sciencefy_ it."

Ah, so the one in the tree was Gene. That meant this one was Naru.

As the twin on the ground aimed up a dry glare at the second, I couldn't believe how I didn't notice. Of course he'd be this precocious child.

"The author's language is intelligent and edifying. Her prose was a bit long winded for the styles of our times, but I find I liked the patience it took to understand her descriptions, for the reader was well rewarded with a almost tangible picture of the character—"

"Oh my god, _nerd down._ Why do you have to show off to me? Did you like it or not?"

Naru's frown didn't disappear. He snapped the book close, as he still did as an adult when he was irritated, and lifted the book in Gene's direction. "I wasn't showing off. If you had just shown a little patience yourself, I was trying to explain myself. On an entertainment level, no. It was duller than chalk. Intellectually, yes, but not because of this…" he wrinkled his nose. "You're a fourteen year old boy reading romance novels, and you think _I'm_ the one with the problem? What was your point in making me read this? You could have made me done anything, having won fair and square, and you make me read _this?_ "

"Hey, it was either that or _Conan the Barbarian_ comics."

Naru stiffened. "Mother specifically told you not to—"

"Blah blah blah—do you even like boobs?" Gene's face split into a devilish grin as Naru's face went bright red. "There we go. I thought so. So be grateful I took the, ahem, _safe_ route to awaken your more sensitive sensibilities."

Naru opened his mouth to ask something, half turned to the house as though in the mind to find said _Barbarian_ comics and burn them, but stopped. He gave his brother his front, arms crossed over his chest.

"This is about that girl," he said.

"Her name is Marian," said Gene, wrinkling his nose in distaste as he slumped himself forward onto his branch to glare down at his brother like a lazy monkey. "And Jane and Charlotte before that."

Naru put his face to a hand with a very teenage like groan of frustration. "Gene, I don't care."

"You hurt their feelings pretty bad—"

"They didn't even know me. Besides, are they even old enough to like boys? Does a pair of budding breasts automatically qualify you for romance? If anything this will teach them not to go throwing around their affections on people they don't know."

Gene's glare dropped into amazement. "You really are a butt."

"Yes." Naru dropped his hand, turning back again. "If anything it's your fault. You're such a…flirt."

Gene shot up, and a few leaves fluttered down from his movement. "It's called being _nice_."

"Whatever. They probably couldn't tell the difference between me and you anyways—"

"—Until you opened your mouth, yeah." Gene swung his leg back over with his other and slipped down from the tree, landing on bended knee. He straightened, creating a perfect, blue-shirt doppelganger to the aloof, skinny Naru. "But it's really only hurting you in the end. I was trying to help you understand, and I figured something smarty and classical and…wordy would help you understand better than pictures would. Romance and girls aren't bad, and if you keep hurting people like that, you'll end up all alone with no friends and—"

Naru pushed the book against Gene's chest.

"I'm too young for this," he said.

Gene's face flushed. "Are you listening to me? I'm trying to take care of you!"

At this, Naru gave his first smile, although it was tiny compared to the wide-spread grin I knew Gene was capable of at a drop of the hat.

"I know. And I'm saying don't worry. After all, I've got you, don't I?"

And he started off across the lawn. Sitting at a stone bench a ways a way was maybe a younger Lin, who was also reading a book, but clearly there to watch the other boys. A park I hadn't noticed before spread out behind him, complete with a playground crawling with children and a girl on roller blades walking her dog.

Gene didn't follow right away. His eyebrows had done the pucker Naru's did so often lately towards me when he was concerned.

"But I might not always be around, you idiot."

The scene changed. My heart had started moving towards Naru's poor, puckered brow and my desire to smooth it. He shouldn't have to worry about me—

And I was standing in the hospital room, looking on my sleeping self curled up at Naru's side. Naru had woken up, but hadn't sat up. Instead, he watched me, and the raw, naked tenderness I saw on his face and the way he lifted his hand to brush back some of my hair made me draw back. That sort of love could make a stranger weep. Did I really do him any justice? Did I really deserve that kind of passion? Did that sort of affection even exist in real life?

But instead of being happy, or touched, it just made me fully comprehend just how easily I could destroy him. That look—there was nothing more vulnerable. Would he be able to survive if anything were to happen to me? Suddenly, I couldn't agree with Gene's concern more. Naru had put so much onto me. Didn't he know what it really meant to have friends? Didn't he have any idea how much the others loved him? He had to. He had given signs. He had even said so…sort of.

I had to hope so, because the darkness was swallowing me again, and this time a confusing menagerie of images and colors took me up. Flashes of people I didn't know, lights, music, a girl clutching at a red Solo cup, laughing as though her lungs might give up, a weeping woman alone in a small paisley kitchen, the willowy ghost girl with the sad-doe eyes, watching me, first far away, then drawing near—

I had to find something. I had to solve this case—for Naru. For the others. People were dying.

 _"Monsters."_

She was besides me, brown sugar hair swept forward to hide her expression. She was looking down, as though into a well, and I followed her sight to the weeping woman bellow. It was back in that paisley kitchen with soft yellow cupboards and sunflower themed sugar jars. She was a plain woman, with long, skinny arms that might have once been beautiful when they had a bit of flesh on them. I thought I could recognize the angle of her slumped shoulders. She didn't look well. Her crying suddenly stopped to throw up into the sink she hunched over.

"What's wrong with her?" I asked, hoping the girl besides me would answer, but she didn't. "I know that woman. But…" From where? Oh gosh, from where?

"Monsters."

This time, however, the word didn't come from the girl besides me, but from the woman, her voice croaked with stomach acid.

" _That's all they can be,"_ echoed the girl beside me in time with the woman.

"What are you talking about? Why is she sick?"

" _Why were you sick?"_ asked the girl.

I opened my mouth to answer that I had been traumatized, I was in a panic, that everything in my body had just been rejecting the memory of hers she had force fed me into reliving, but stopped as the woman below retched once again. Looking at the ghost's girl's willowy features, I suddenly saw the similarity between her frame and that of the woman's below. They even had the same brown sugar hair, though the woman's had already started to streak with gray.

"She's your mother." The scene blurred. I saw flashes of keys—hands—the spare keys we got for our rented room in the 2-B dormitory. The hand had been bony looking, but had surprising strength as she helped Yasu carry the tote.

 _No matter how high we keep our admission standards, there will always be those who treat college as the place to experiment on everything your parents told you not to._

Then it clicked in my head. Mrs. Kodachi, Head of the Student Housing department, was sure to have a master key to all of the rooms. She could unlock any door and lock it, without anyone paying her much mind. She could just be doing her rounds, checking on a room, moving someone in, she did it all the time. She also took care of drug searches, if those were done at all. When drugs were confiscated, where did they go? Also, in the upper management of the university, it was very likely for her to have the access needed to make another page connected to the universities mainframe, so only those who had a Student ID could log in—because why would a Student ID work otherwise? If I could ask Lin to look into when the site was created and the time of this girls death, maybe—

A sharp, claw like force ripped me out of the barrage like a splash of cold water. I was thrown back, pressed down, blind-sighted.

And then she was above me, knees on my thighs, thin fingers digging into my shoulders.

And her face closing in on mine. Her doe-like eyes growing darker, darker, darker, till there weren't any eyes there at all, just holes that drew me in like a pair of mouths.

 _You will not stop justice._

I knew what waited for me in the back of those pit-like eyes. Swii was there, telling me to strip, burying his fleshy dagger into me, cutting up into me, sawing at me, demanding I moan, demanding I bleed.

"No! Please!"

But I couldn't see her skin anymore. It was just black. I started to feel the pain in my pelvis again, the burning, horrible pain.

"Mai!"

I woke with a start, trembling, covered in cold sweat.

And staring into the dark blue eyes of my Naru, who had taken hold of my arm to shake me.

"It's just a dream," he said, letting go of my arm to wipe a thumb across my damp brow. "Come back, easy now. Shh."

The pain, I realized, was my cramps, starting up again at my stress. Really, the uterus was just a sensitive, spoiled brat when it was menstruating time.

"Mrs. Kodachi," I gasped.

His eyebrows rose. "Oh. One of those?"

When was it not these days? "The girl Swii raped—she's her daughter. She could have done it all—she could have—" I sat up, ignoring the way my tender, bleeding girl organ twinged at that action. "I've got to call the detective."


	17. Epilogue

**I had a really hard time explaining near the end. I couldn't find the right words, so please forgive me for how confusing it is. It's difficult to explain in easy terms why rape is so damaging to the human. It's not just a taking away of will, otherwise forcing anyone to do anything would be like rape. But...to give worth to the pain of rape would give worth to sex, and I understand that a lot of people now-a-days don't do that anymore. To do so would put consequences to using it incorrectly, and that's either a scary thought or a overly religious thought for many.**

 **But...I did my best. That's all I really can do.**

Epilogue

Once they knew where to look, the evidence started cropping up on its own. 'Devil's Breath' was found in Mrs. Kodachi's stack of 'confiscated drugs' that she hadn't passed over to the police's department. Thing is, even if they have found the drugs, if she hadn't been explicitly connected with our case, no one would have thought to take a closer look at the bags of cocaine, where the scopolamine was hidden. The two drugs, after all, did look remarkably similar. Then there were the testimonies from other students of having seen her in the building, along with an alibi that landed her in the building at the same time of the murders, as well as the motive of her daughter committing suicide because of a rape-induced-pregnancy, and you get a pretty tight corner. Said corner managed to squeeze out from the lanky woman of her connection with three other boys who had died in the last year and a half. The only reason Swii was still alive was because she had yet to identify which fool boy had thought to rape her daughter with scopolamine.

That being said, Swii didn't get away scott free either. Since confessing of using scopolamine (because he was coward before my psychic prowess), he had been kept in holding on a bail of $5,000 until his court hearing in a few weeks time.

I, however, did not get away with it.

Danni Kodachi, the girl who had been raped, thought Swii's punishment all too light. She was ready the moment I closed my eyes with her whole face agape to swallow me whole and nails slashing. If it hadn't been for the fact that I had been afraid of that very thing happening, I wouldn't have stayed up the whole night and ended up nodding off next to Naru's hospital bed, so the moment I started wailing he was there to shake me awake. With that, Lin took the name and date of death of Danni Kodachi (readily available by now), and exorcised me of her vengeful spirit.

Both men showed no compassion for the ghost as her spirit blurred across the flame of Lin's lone candle. I, on the other hand, couldn't help but weep. Naru attributed it to my lack of sleep and half coerced, half seduced me into nodding off on his hospital bed, not once suggesting I go sleep at home like he usually would since it technically wasn't appropriate in a hospital setting. I figured it was his worry wart way of keeping an eye on me while I slept to make sure no other vengeful spirits would be clawing at my subconscious.

Even though he acted with equal aloof gruffness as the nurse who ended up waking me, I could see through him. He liked me. Hee.

The good part of a week passed and he was finally released from the hospital. After I had verified that my male was in full working condition (he had tried very hard not to smile as I bent his arm experimentally, as though I could glean his condition on the bending-ability of his elbow), I demanded that he get me strawberry ice cream with chocolate shell. Before he could say something snappy like "I'm not your desert machine," or "I'm not just going to let you manipulate me into getting you whatever you want" (which was a lie), I informed him that I had charged him said ice cream when they had finally let me into his room back at the hospital.

"You were unconscious," I told him as he frowned. "So I'm reminding you now. But it's still in effect."

"I didn't choose to get possessed or have unreasonable amounts of PK," he said.

But he got me the ice cream anyways. What can I say? I'm just that cute. Also we had been heading out to get some 'well needed sunshine' as Naru put it anyways. I was getting use to these weird little sun treatments Naru kept putting me through after a particularly traumatizing case.

It was while we sat on a park bench, licking ice cream, that I thought to tell him of my other vision. One of those companionable silences had settled over us so I figured it safe to reveal.

"Pride and Prejudice?" he said, tongue darting out to catch some chocolate ice cream at the corner of his mouth. "Don't remember it. Must not have been a very memorable book. But then, Gene was always shoving books and whatnot onto me."

"I find that highly amusing," I said. "Is that where you get all your romance training? Fuzzy subconscious memories of Gene's programming?"

Naru snorted. A breeze blew over the tree we sat under, a large Japanese maple. It made me think of the tree I had seen Gene up. The well trimmed park grass shivered about my sandals. "Hardly. I don't do romance."

"You gave me a rose with my bagels. That's romance."

"It's not rocket science that girls like roses. They even put roses on the front of those, what did you call them? 'Grocery line bodice rippers'?"

"Way to go, you actually remembered that. I'm so proud of you."

"Don't patronize me."

"You sow some, you reap some, Oliver dear."

He shuddered. "And don't say that. You sound like my mother. Naru works."He took a lick of his ice cream.

I smirked as a sudden idea came to me. Maybe this would tickle his memory. "When can I call you Oliver then? Or Mr. Davis?"

He took another lick of his ice cream. "Mr. Davis if you want to be particularly smart ass. Oliver when you're in the throes of passion. I think that will do."

I blanched. So much for a Pride and Prejudice moment. "Since when can you say 'the throes of passion' without flaming like a fire engine?"

"Honestly, Mai. I'm an adult. I only blushed because you're childishness embarrassed me in front of my parents. You act incredibly inappropriate at times, anyone would blush."

"Sure." I caught up to the melted ice cream that had been neglected in my conversation, pouting. He couldn't have taken away my favorite pass time, could he? "So basically you want me to call you Oliver while your penis is in me."

A spray of chocolate ice cream and a sudden fit of coughing told me I had won. I had to fight down my laughter, otherwise the whole picture would be ruined and he'd probably stalk away from me in moody indignation. Really, no one had any idea how moody he could be when he wanted to be. He gave such a good blank front.

"Mai!"

I gave him my most innocent, owlish look. "What? That's what you said."

"How can you…that is not what I…" He seemed to give up on words and settled for giving me the most flabbergasted look I had seen him give yet. The great Naru thought himself omniscient. He took care never to appear flabbergasted. "We're in public!"

"Oh please, no one is around." And it was true. It was in the middle of a weekday, so all the children were in school, and since it was around noon most were inside to escape the summer heat. Only an old woman walking with a friend could be seen, and she was on the clear other side of the park's pond. "And I even used the correct word for it too. I could have said 'dick'. Would you prefer dick?"

"Have you always been so crass?"

"Oh, no. If you recall I was always the one schooling you on common decorum. You're just hilarious."

"I am not!"

"Yes you are. If you want me to stop teasing you, say 'sex' ten times, very slowly."

Op. He was getting there. The stalking away phase. He had even thrown away his ice cream in the trash can next to us. What a waste. I, on the other hand, was almost done. It had been glorious.

But, rather than fleeing in much marching pose and decorum, he surprised me. "Do I have your word on that?"

I had to smile. Oh god, if he actually did do that, I'd die laughing. I couldn't even picture it in my head. "Yep. Cross my heart and hope to die."

"Alright, you remember that." Rather than launch off into the slow 'sex' mantra, however, he tugged out his handkerchief, wiped off his hands, and stood. "Ready to head back? We have a meeting at three with a client I'd rather not miss. Honestly, there's not much worse than being out for a week. I haven't even finished the report."

We walked back to the car. I stayed on my toes the whole way, waiting for the awaited entertainment of a fidgeting, blushing Naru—or, even better, a forcefully straight face Naru saying 'sex' ten times slow. It was going to be so funny! Honestly, did he have any idea how entertaining he was?

But the afternoon passed and he didn't say another word. The client came, explained how she thought herself personally haunted by her dead husband, and was referred to Lin after Naru had his fun taking tests of her person and the area around her ("See that blur there over the left ear? The air is even a bit cooler there. Remarkable, right? For some reason, a spouse haunting always picks that left ear in 8 times out of ten.")

When the day drew to a close, I had given up on my comedy show and figured he'd probably find some inane moment that would take all of the funny out of it just to scorn me and get me off his back.

"Would you like a ride home?" he asked.

"It's a ten minute walk."

"Which means a twenty minute walk for me."

"You don't have to come."

"Oh, but I do. Have ten words to say, don't I?"

I perked and the grin worked itself onto my face. "Drive me."

So he did. I thought he'd take me somewhere else, at first, but he didn't. He just took me to my apartment. He even got out and walked me up to my door, all the while me waiting in anticipated silence for my giggles. I knew something was up. This was Naru. Nothing couldn't be up. Then again, Naru wasn't exactly mischievous, was he? All mischievousness had been distilled into the other twin. Maybe it would fail…oh, let it fail spectacularly.

I stuffed my key into my lock.

"Well?" I asked.

"Just give me a moment."

My grin grew. Oh yeah, he was stealing himself. I wonder if he'd let me record it—of course not. Then it would never happen. Not to mention it might become into some sort of porn video to those women who hadn't been desensitized to his beauty first…

I had opened my door and stepped inside my house when that thought came to me. Something tickled up the back of my neck. He wouldn't.

His warm hand nudged me inside. I heard the door close behind me, and the next thing I knew he had spun me around to face him, and he was smirking.

He wouldn't. That would be just…he wouldn't.

He took my hand and pulled me between him and the door.

"Sex."

He hadn't even pressed me against the door. All he was doing was holding my hand to it and leaning over me with that smirk. But it still felt like he had.

"Sex."

He was leaning in closer so his breath wafted across my face. Tea. Tea and something indefinably Naru.

"Sex."

His voice had dropped to a low husk I didn't know it could do. A small 'eep' almost crawled out of my throat. No one had used that sort of—I mean I had read about it—I wasn't some weird sicko who listened to that sort of stuff and—

"Sex."

He was getting closer. I couldn't look away from him now, and the amber sunset backlighted him. He and I were alone in my apartment. I remembered all the times he had wrapped me up in his arms—practically swallowing me in them and a familiar heat hit me like a bowling ball to the stomach. My knees went weak. I felt sweaty.

"Naru—"

"If you stop me, you got to swear to not tease me with sex again, and yes that one counts too."

"Wait, that's not—"

"Sex."

This time he had said it against my ear. His lips reminded me—oh gosh, I don't have to tell you want it reminded me of. Where the hell did he learn to—wait, was he just doing this naturally? Did people just do this naturally or did you have to read about it—

"Sex."

Oh crud, I should have said five times. If I start kissing him now there's no way I could justify pushing him to the ground and straddling him. Or was there? No, this was just all me. All he was doing was holding my hand and doing that stupid, sweat-inducing voice and making me all…heavy…

"Sex."

I knew he was playing with me when he finally brought his other hand forward and rubbed a thumb beneath my shirt, hitting a spot on my hip he had only discovered recently.

Screw it.

I struck out for his mouth, but he dodged me.

"Swear it."

"What?" I mumbled. Why'd he have to be so gorgeous? Why was I getting all these stupid images in my head of him over me murmuring in that voice and rubbing me all over?

"You won't tease me ever again about sex."

I moaned. "Unfair! That could include anything—"

"You know what I mean. Swear it."

"Naru, this is low. I thought you said not to tempt you—"

"Tempt me?" Aw crap, there was the smirk. The smirk, the one that always came up when he knew he had the better of me—or anyone, for that matter. It was one of his common ones, and the one that annoyed me most. "You've done nothing but stand there, and I've hardly touched me. By the way: sex. And I believe that makes ten."

I managed to catch his lips, but only just as he dodged me. "Now you know how it feels, Mai. So swear it."

"Aw, frick…" There went the guilt nerves too. Double punch while I was down? Jerk. "Fine. I swear I won't ever tease you about sex again." Ugh, how was I going to get rid of this freaking…want now? Had he even been trying all those make out sessions ago? Lordie, had he really only touched my hand?

I stomped away from him moodily. Good job, Naru. You had successfully reprimanded me. Now I really would keep my word, and not just in one regard. If this was even part of what I inadvertently made Naru feel on occasion with my own kisses…aw, suck. Jerk.

But Naru didn't leave. He took a place against my counter and folded his arms as I curled up on my couch and got ready to bleach my brain with Columbo episodes on my laptop.

"Sex isn't unlike drugs," he said softly. "It's addicting. It's tantalizing. It's one of humanity's basest needs, and most often abused."

"Why are you telling me this?" I said, not even bothering to hide how grumpy I was now.

"Because, once more, you've come off a case hiding the damage."

I froze. Oh. So that's why he had watched me sleep…and my dreams hadn't always been visions. Nightmares came.

I kept my gaze on the screen as I shrugged. "It didn't happen to me. It was just a vision. Besides, it's just sex. People have sex with strangers every day."

"Then why were you sick?"

My screen blurred. She had asked the same thing. I saw Mrs. Kodachi over the sink, vomiting, sick and thin. Was it just because her daughter had killed herself? Or was it the pregnancy? I wasn't pregnant. But, then, they all knew that. The ghost girl, Danni, had known it as well, and screamed it at me still somewhere at the bottom of my soul

I thought you'd understand.

Naru was besides me, now, using my coffee table as a chair. "Before you can heal, you need to understand that you are wounded. Ignoring it will just allow it to fester."

My hands were trembling. I didn't like where this was going. "But it didn't happen to me, it was just a vision—and that my stupid period—this is stupid." And it was. Even if it hadn't been a vision, the drug would have scared the crap out of me more than anything. It was just a penis. It was just an act. What was virginity anyways? A way to make sure the baby was someone's? People had sex all the time without love or tenderness or any of that.

Wait…had I always thought like this? Why was I thinking like this?

"Why were you sick?" he asked quietly.

I couldn't hold my laptop anymore. I put my shaking hands to my face to both steal them and hide the tears I didn't understand. "I don't know. I was just violated—but it didn't really happen. No one violated me."

Naru didn't respond. I dared to peek out above my hands, half wondering if he was some sicko who wanted me to be hurt, so he was programming all this crap into my head when I had been fine and dandy before.

But no. There it was. That look I saw in my vision that he had given my sleeping form while in the hospital. His features had been considerably softened, and something not quite a smile parted his lips ever so slightly. But it was his eyes that caught me up, burning and…

How could I have thought that of someone who loved me so much?

"I love you," he said softly. "Nothing will ever make me not love you. I'm just worried that on our wedding night you'll just see me as Swii and be afraid. I don't want you to feel frightened or insecure when you are at your most vulnerable, because that's what it is. It's baring your soul, showing everything you always keep under clothes, that you never bare to society. Everything goes out the window. I…" And something stabbed at him. That potential vulnerability I had so feared was activated, and my hands flashed out of their own will to touch him. He kept going though. "Listen to me preach to satisfy my own fear. Mai, I will never…you are so precious to me, I don't…"

Before my eyes he was crumpling, and I understood. He had brought up this topic because he was worried about me. Everything from the park, the ice cream, to this point. He had tried to set it up to make his point, to try and draw out where I was hurt so he could fix it, because he felt like he had failed in preventing me from getting hurt at all. I had never stopped to think what it must have done to him to sit in my tiny bathroom and listen to me vomit and sob and moan.

Realizing that unlocked the floodgates. The memory flowed through me and I found myself pooling into his lap.

And I let my mouth loose. I realized I didn't even understand myself why it had felt so awful, or why it had made me felt more violated than any simply physical attack should have. I had been hurt by someone physically before. And Naru had been right, I had been about to shove it down just because it had just been a vision, but the feelings were still there. I really had started to wonder if that was to be expected from Naru. And, deep down, I had somehow found myself wondering what it all must be worth—what I must be worth—for something so little to damage me so.

Filthy. Violated. And a conflicting need to brush it aside as nothing while at the same time screaming at how paper-like and unimportant I had found myself. It had been so easy for Swii. It had been nothing to him. I had been nothing to him.

But I was definitely not nothing to Naru. I was his world.

And I came to the conclusion, as he held me tight, that it was okay. Because he was my world too.

 **While you guys are waiting for the next book in the series, please check out my beyblade fanfiction: "Before Beasts, There was Sound." I already have two other books written for that series (also a short 20,000 word series like this one), but since the beyblade fandom is like...dead, I don't have enough readers to justify continuing it, because my writing time is precious. But I really really like it... Just, if you're up for a read...or if you want to drop by a review on word choice or...yeah.**


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